TORONTO — It’s games like these that tell you who you are.
Not the ones where it all lines up, where you overwhelm teams with machine-like dominance, every gear turning with flawless precision. It’s nights like this: still aching from yesterday’s tilt, the best of your best out of the lineup, lines thrown in a blender at the last minute. It’s a tough opponent staring down at you from across the ice, running through you every chance they get, fighting for their playoff lives when yours is already signed, sealed and delivered.
In those moments, what have you got?
On a Sunday night at Scotiabank Arena, the Toronto Maple Leafs proved unfazed by the challenge, taking down the rough-and-tumble New York Islanders 4-2 without reigning Rocket Richard Trophy winner Auston Matthews. And in doing so, bagging a franchise-record 50th win and 106th point.
They didn’t make it easy on themselves. With the tone set from the opening draw courtesy of a bone-clattering check from New York’s Ross Johnston on veteran Mark Giordano, the Maple Leafs started their trek through the mud. They stumbled early, the Islanders gifted an all-too-easy power-play marker late in the first as Ilya Lyubushkin executed what his coach later called a “textbook screen” on his own netminder, allowing Anthony Beauvillier to walk in and casually snipe the game’s first past Jack Campbell.
But the Maple Leafs battled back, returning to level ground just a few minutes later, Mitch Marner floating to the netfront unseen like a ghost in the slot, eventually landing in the perfect spot to whip a Giordano rebound top corner on Ilya Sorokin.
It was a similar story in the middle frame. This time it was Alex Kerfoot who took over the own-goal duties, a botched clearing attempt in front of Campbell accidentally ricocheting into the back of Toronto’s net. Again, they climbed back, Kerfoot taking it on his shoulders and undoing his error with a gorgeous stutter-step setup for Pierre Engvall on a two-on-one midway through the night.
A few minutes later, William Nylander — who was flying all game, his deft stick-lift, non-pass helping spring Kerfoot and Engvall’s tying tally — took a pass from John Tavares on the power play and fired one home to give his Maple Leafs the lead. They didn’t relinquish it from there.
It’s emblematic of how this season’s gone for this team. Stumble early, fight back, take off.
“There’s been very little complacency in our group. We got off to a tough start at the beginning of the year. Lots of things were being said outside of the room, inside the room, and coming from there to where we’re at right now [says] a lot,” Kerfoot said of that journey post-game.
But just like Sunday night, it could’ve just as easily slipped away from them, had they let it.
“I think it can do one of two things to a group,” Kerfoot continued, speaking of the chatter from the chorus of doubters early in the year. “It can either tear things apart or it can bring you together. I think that our play on the ice has really spoken for how we responded to it.”
The win over the Islanders offered the Maple Leafs faithful a chance step back and take stock, to see beyond the historic dominance that’s become a nightly routine for the squad’s usual focal point. It’s been the Auston Matthews Show in Toronto of late, and rightfully so given the rarified air the young sniper’s putting himself in. But with No. 34 sidelined, the 17,464 in attendance were granted an opportunity to better appreciate what’s been going on in Matthews’ orbit.
In netting his 34th goal of the year Sunday night, Marner collected his 94th point too, tying his career-high in 15 fewer games than the last time he reached the sum, and with eight more goals to his name this time around. The 24-year-old has been the class of the league since the calendar turned from 2021 to 2022 — no other NHLer has outscored him since Jan. 1, in which time Marner’s amassed an absurd 72 points in 42 games. He’s been scoring above a point-per-game pace since November, above 1.50 per game since January, over 1.65 for the past two months.
Nylander’s power-play marker all but guaranteed he’ll be setting a new personal best before the year’s through, too, the goal tying his personal high of 31 — news to Nylander, who laughed when told he’d tied that 31-spot: “I didn’t know that… I thought I had more goals.” — to go along with his already career-best 74 points. And then there’s Engvall’s continued transformation, and Kerfoot’s career-best 50th point, making the Maple Leafs the only club with seven players above the 50-point threshold.
Whether any of it matters in the end remains to be seen, but the team can take solace in the fact that they’re pushing more than they ever have to right their past post-season wrongs, even as key names move in and out of the lineup.
“You know, we’ve had a lot of guys miss a lot of games this year, including myself, and guys have stepped up and played a bigger role, and we’ve won a lot of big games,” Marner said after Sunday’s win. “It’s something that we always talk about — just stepping up and taking on more of the spotlight, and guys have thrived in it.”
Added Kerfoot: “There’s going to be injuries. Every team deals with them throughout the year, and we’ve played with a bunch of different guys out throughout the course of the year. And we’ve really moved forward.”
That’s the most crucial education these Maple Leafs can get this season. There’s no question they’re an elite team, if all lines up correctly, if everything falls in their favour. The questions have always been around what happens when the plans fall apart, when the plot twists arrive. It’s not about perfecting the way you’d prefer to win — it’s about learning how to win any game, any way.
On this night, they did. And in their coach’s eyes, they’ve been doing it for a fair while this season.
“You look at how we’ve played, look at the results that we’ve gotten and how we’ve gotten those results — in particular against some of the top teams, and teams that we’re going to face within our division, whether it’s at home or on the road — we’ve done a good job,” Keefe said, “and gotten good results.”
Without their best, they proved they still have elite talent, that they can still take on opponents who meet the game with an approach opposite to theirs, and come out with two points. They even proved they can still make some history without No. 34.
But all of it will only matter if it becomes a brick in the path to the place they truly want to get to. That much is clear from the tone struck by these Leafs in the wake of officially putting together the best regular season in Maple Leafs history.
“It’s a long season. It’s a grind to win a lot of games in this league. There’s lots of good teams. So it’s a really cool thing to be a part of. But we’ve got bigger and better things ahead,” Kerfoot said of the franchise record.
“It really means nothing if we don’t accomplish anything in the playoffs. But it is a grind in this regular season to win games, and we’ve been doing that on a pretty consistent basis.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
