Maple Leafs left singing Blues, then swing three-player trade with Arizona – Toronto Sun

Article content

William Nylander was up and down like the Stockholm stock market — and so were a lot of volatile Maple Leafs.

Article content

Negatives eventually overwhelmed positives and put Toronto in the red against the Blues, a team that counter-rushes as well as any NHL power. St. Louis emerged 6-3 winners at Scotiabank Arena, with the Leafs completing a three-player depth trade with Arizona after the game.

Nylander scored two for the Leafs after a long drought that had produced just two goals since New Year’s Day. He also wore the goat horns on yet another Toronto too-many-men call. But he was hardly alone, with coverage and turnovers an issue throughout the team all evening.

“We battled back well to tie it (3-3) at the beginning of the third and just lost our man,” Nylander said of Brandon Saad’s winner.

Nylander’s line was on for that goal, but defenceman Timothy Liljegren gave the puck up at the Leafs blueline, a mistake ending with some nifty passing and Jack Campbell flailing with no support.

Article content

On another 2-on-1 goal, Campbell stretched to make a great pad save, but Brayden Schenn was still left alone to knock in his own rebound while lying on the ice.

“Jack doesn’t have a chance to be good tonight,” coach Sheldon Keefe said dismissively of his team’s inability to handle the Blues. “He gives up five (and one empty-netter) but some of them were gifts.”

Long after his comments, the Leafs announced they’d acquired veteran forward Ryan Dzingel and defenceman Ilya Lyubushkin from the Arizona Coyotes for idled forward Nick Ritchie and Toronto’s choice of a third-round selection in 2023 or a second-round selection in 2025.

The 6-foot-2, 208-pound Lyubushkin, a right-handed shot, has nine assists in 46 games this year, while the unproductive Ritchie experiment ends and he gets out of AHL limbo. It’s unknown if the new duo will get to Montreal in time for Monday’s game against the Canadiens.

Article content

Saturday was a sloppy start for the Leafs blueliners and for Campbell. He left a fat blocker rebound for Blues’ sniper Pavel Buchnevich, a rush generated by GTA grads Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou. Then came a 2-on-1 drop pass by popular ex-Leaf Tyler Bozak to Klim Kostin, who picked the far corner.

Campbell settled down and Nylander was twice able to solve Ville Husso, a fine Finn currently leading the league in goals-against average. Nylander broke away on a delayed penalty in the first period and also got velocity on an Alex Kerfoot feed to tie it. But that was answered 29 seconds later by Schenn.

After 15 games without a goal following his hot start in January, defenceman TJ Brodie stepped into a drive past a partially screened Husso.

Article content

“We knew they are a rush team,” a glum Brodie said. “Three or four guys, a second wave that comes.”

A Ryan O’Reilly tip off a point shot clinched it.

The Blues seemed to get away with a bench minor after the Leafs were flagged yet again. Nylander thought his mate was at the gate before he touched the puck, but all these too-many-men brain cramps are grating on Keefe.

“We’ve had some under different circumstances and sometimes things happen,” Keefe said. “Sometimes they are bang-bang, but this one tonight was not good. We had more than enough time to process what was going on and let that puck go by.”

None of the evening’s goals were on the power play, with the two top units in the league getting just one chance each. The Leafs’ opportunity was after Torey Krug got an extra roughing minor while wrestling Michael Bunting.

Article content

With the attempt to add Adam Brooks to the roster this week thwarted on the waiver wire by Winnipeg, Liljegren was re-inserted as the 21st man on the roster and put back in the lineup as Jake Muzzin’s partner. Sandin went back to the left side after one game on the right with Justin Holl, while Travis Dermott sat.

The Leafs will practise Sunday before games against two current non-playoff teams, Montreal and Columbus, continuing to clear up unfinished business on the schedule from the COVID-19 cancellations around Christmas.

It was the second game at SBA with half-capacity since the most recent pandemic regulations were eased, an announced crowd of 9,098.

Since just before the SBA opened in 1999, the Blues have now built a record of 14-1-2 in 17 games in Hogtown. They were also missing injured leading scorer Vladimir Tarasenko

lhornby@postmedia.com