One week ago things were pretty pessimistic in Leafs Land.
Must have been a day that ended with a “y”.
There were bumps in the road over the first three weeks. And after a three-game losing streak where the Maple Leafs dropped games to a tired San Jose Sharks squad, got humiliated by a Pittsburgh Penguins team without any of its stars in the lineup, and then outclassed in an “eye-opening” loss to their former goaltender and the Carolina Hurricanes, the Maple Leafs were surrounded by well-earned doubts from the outside.
Some of the same old problems were present. Shoddy defensive play, top players not pulling through on offence, and a power play that was inconceivably inefficient.
“I think that noise and that panic from the outside can’t shake us — because there’s no reason it should. It’s still early, and we’re still trying to figure out our game,” Auston Matthews said last Tuesday.
The Leafs ended that stretch of losses with back-to-back wins, but even those came with caveats.
They beat the Blackhawks. Ya, but Chicago didn’t have Patrick Kane. They beat the Red Wings. Ya, but Detroit didn’t have Tyler Bertuzzi. They won two games in a row! Ya, but the Hawks and Wings should be soft touches for a contender anyway.
This week was setting up to be a stretch of measurement stick tests for the Leafs, on par with that Carolina game, with Vegas, Tampa and Boston all rolling through Scotiabank Arena.
Vegas arrived with a slew of its stars out to injury as well, and William Karlsson was the latest addition to that list with a broken foot. The Maple Leafs dominated a 4-0 decision for their third win in a row Tuesday night, against a Vegas lineup that included recent waiver claim and former Leafs healthy scratch Michael Amadio.
Though it might be tempting to look over Vegas’ Tuesday lineup and asterisk this win as well, there were some meaningful positives to take away from the victory — the best full effort from the Maple Leafs through their first 10 games.
“Right from the start we took control of the game and I thought we maintained that all the way through,” head coach Sheldon Keefe said after his team’s cleanest performance of the season.
“We were good on special teams. Good goaltending. So ya it’s certainly more indicative of what we think we’re capable of. That’s a shorthanded team playing over there, but as we all know we’ve played against shorthanded teams before and it hasn’t gone like this here today. I thought we did what we needed to do here tonight.”
A FULL 60 MINUTES
Last week’s win over Chicago came after the Leafs dug a two-goal first period deficit and were rallied in the dressing room by passionate intermission speeches. On Saturday’s win against Detroit the Leafs couldn’t pull away from three separate two-goal leads and won a narrow 5-4 decision.
But Toronto didn’t let off the pedal against Vegas’ depleted roster. They took an early lead on Mitch Marner’s spectacularly silky goal, outchanced the Golden Knights by 20 at 5-on-5 and left Jack Campbell with a relatively simple clean up job for his first shutout of the season, turning aside 26 shots.
“I think just really complete from start to finish,” Auston Matthews said. “Just really good energy. I don’t think we gave them too much around our net, too many opportunities. Obviously ‘Soup’ played unbelievable. I think all four lines kept rolling all night. I think that’s an ideal display of hockey we’d like to play.”
Through two periods the Maple Leafs held an 11-3 advantage in high-danger, slot areas chances at 5-on-5, which Vegas clawed back at only a little in a desperate third period. Toronto owned the key areas and opportunities from start to finish.
The Nylander-Matthews-Bunting line which Sheldon Keefe said hadn’t played to its potential yet earlier in the day outshot the competition 10-6 at 5-on-5 and scored their first goal as a unit. The Kerfoot-Tavares-Marner second line continued its two-way dominance, outshooting the Knights 9-2 and outchancing them 10-0.
“I just love their start and the way we played for the full 60 minutes,” Jack Campbell said. “It always gives you a lot of confidence when we start that way. We get on the scoreboard early, heck of a play by Mitchy and the team took off from there, it was great.”
SPECIAL TEAMS A POSITIVE
The power play has been an unlikely sore spot for a star-studded unit dating back to last season and entered Tuesday’s contest ranked in the bottom-third of the league in 2021-22.
The Leafs were only given one man advantage against the Golden Knights in a decidedly un-chippy evening, but it came early in the second period when they held just a 1-0 lead. Miss on that opportunity and maybe Vegas finds a way to hang around; score on it and the flow of momentum continues to favour the Leafs.
Matthews, given a wide-open shot off a deceptive pass from Nylander, scored the type of goal we’ve seen so often from him. A goal scorer’s catch and release.
The penalty kill was equally as impressive, going a perfect 3-for-3 against Vegas’ own struggling power-play unit. The Leafs, in fact, had more scoring chances (5) on their one power play than Vegas (3) did on their three man-advantage opportunities. Heck, the Leafs’ penalty kill generated as many chances as Vegas’ power play.
“I thought the power play in the one opportunity we got really snapped it around well and really hunt pucks and got pucks back and just kept creating chances,” Matthews said.
Toronto’s power play is now two for its past three opportunities after going 0-for its previous 17 over two weeks.
BREAKTHROUGH GAME FOR THE CORE STARS
The major narrative following this year’s Leafs is how they’ve doubled, even tripled, down on the “Core 4” forwards after past playoff failures. We can talk about how the new third line has been a positive shot driver, how Alex Kerfoot is obviously a better fit on the wing, or how well Campbell has played in the crease, but the Leafs will only go as far as the big guys will take them.
Part of the reason for the team’s bumpy start was that their big tickets weren’t paying off yet.
Matthews had one goal in his first six games. Marner had one point in his first seven games and wasn’t quite playing like himself, perhaps forcing the issue on offence a little. William Nylander came in to Tuesday’s game with two points over his previous six games.
They all showed up against the vulnerable Golden Knights.
Marner’s goal will be on your highlights Wednesday, but don’t forget the two assists he also added to this stat line for his first multi-point game of the year. Marner led the charge on the penalty kill as well and nearly broke out a couple of high-quality chances down a man. That’s now three solid performances in a row to follow a gripping-the-stick-too-tight first few weeks.
“He just looks like himself,” Keefe said. “That’s the Mitch we know and love, of course. He’s playing with confidence, he looks like he’s free out there. When he’s free and the game is just flowing for him, he makes great things happen on both sides of the puck.”
Matthews scored the aforementioned power-play marker to give the Leafs a two-goal lead and added a second goal in the final minute of the second period to keep the Golden Knights on the mat. He led the Leafs with six shots. Nylander had five shots himself, scored the final Leafs goal after being sprung by Bunting’s pass, and added an assist, too.
“I thought it was evident early in the game for Matthews and Nylander and Bunting, that line, I thought they had a little extra jump in their step right from the very beginning,” Keefe noted. “The Tavares line continued their momentum, they scored us a huge goal again here tonight to get us moving”.
The spreadsheets (and, you know, common sense) indicated this was inevitable. Here is the danger of drawing sweeping new conclusions too early.
Of course, this group of leaders will face far more defining moments than a Tuesday night in November. But this was a start.
The Leafs face another stiff test Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning who will be without their top star Nikita Kucherov and sit tied with the Leafs at 11 points in the Atlantic Division. The result against Vegas’ scraped-together lineup isn’t especially meaningful in a vacuum, but the takeaways are positive and timely. What happens next may be the better measure of impact, though.
One strong, full-game effort needs to lead to another for it to mean anything in the long-term.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.
The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.
The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.
Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.
The final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.
EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.
Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.
The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.
Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.
TAKEAWAYS
Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.
Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.
KEY MOMENT
New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.
KEY RETURN?
Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.
OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN
The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.
The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.
UP NEXT
Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.
Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns, and Kareem Hunt pounded into the end zone from two yards out in overtime to give the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs a 30-24 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night.
DeAndre Hopkins had two touchdown receptions for the Chiefs (8-0), who drove through the rain for two fourth-quarter scores to take a 24-17 lead with 4:17 left. But then Kansas City watched as Baker Mayfield led the Bucs the other way in the final minute, hitting Ryan Miller in the end zone with 27 seconds to go in regulation time.
Tampa Bay (4-5) elected to kick the extra point and force overtime, rather than go for a two-point conversion and the win. And it cost the Buccaneers when Mayfield called tails and the coin flip was heads. Mahomes and the Chiefs took the ball, he was 5-for-5 passing on their drive in overtime, and Hunt finished his 106-yard rushing day with the deciding TD plunge.
Travis Kelce had 14 catches for 100 yards with girlfriend Taylor Swift watching from a suite, and Hopkins finished with eight catches for 86 yards as the Chiefs ran their winning streak to 14 dating to last season. They became the sixth Super Bowl champion to start 8-0 the following season.
Mayfield finished with 200 yards and two TDs passing for the Bucs, who have lost four of their last five.
It was a memorable first half for two players who had been waiting to play in Arrowhead Stadium.
The Bucs’ Rachaad White grew up about 10 minutes away in a tough part of Kansas City, but his family could never afford a ticket for him to see a game. He wound up on a circuitous path through Division II Nebraska-Kearney and a California junior college to Arizona State, where he eventually became of a third-round pick of Tampa Bay in the 2022 draft.
Two year later, White finally got into Arrowhead — and the end zone. He punctuated his seven-yard scoring run in the second quarter, which gave the Bucs a 7-3 lead, by nearly tossing the football into the second deck.
Then it was Hopkins’ turn in his first home game since arriving in Kansas City from a trade with the Titans.
The three-time All-Pro, who already had caught four passes, reeled in a third-down heave from Mahomes amid triple coverage for a 35-yard gain inside the Tampa Bay five-yard line. Three plays later, Mahomes found him in the back of the end zone, and Hopkins celebrated his first TD with the Chiefs with a dance from “Remember the Titans.”
Tampa Bay tried to seize control with consecutive scoring drives to start the second half. The first ended with a TD pass to Cade Otton, the latest tight end to shred the Chiefs, and Chase McLaughlin’s 47-yard field goal gave the Bucs a 17-10 lead.
The Chiefs answered in the fourth quarter. Mahomes marched them through the rain 70 yards for a tying touchdown pass, which he delivered to Samaje Perine while landing awkwardly and tweaking his left ankle, and then threw a laser to Hopkins on third-and-goal from the Buccaneers’ five-yard line to give Kansas City the lead.
Tampa Bay promptly went three-and-out, but its defence got the ball right back, and this time Mayfield calmly led his team down field. His capped the drive with a touchdown throw to Miller — his first career TD catch — with 27 seconds to go, and Tampa Bay elected to play for overtime.
UP NEXT
Buccaneers: Host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
