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It was a glass half-empty for the Maple Leafs, whose stirring late comeback, rush of overtime chances, and advantage in shootout experience could not reverse a loss to the NHL’s last-place team.
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Thursday began poorly and ultimately ended the same way, a 6-5 shootout loss to San Jose that might have stuck Toronto in a three-way tie in the Atlantic Division had the Leafs not scored twice in the final minute of regulation.
Our takeaways of Game 1 of the California trip:
WILD WEST BEHAVIOUR
Coach Craig Berube wants to clean up team penalty killing in the final 10 games of the season, so maybe his charges should control their behaviour a bit better.
Max Domi was irate over a hit, but his rash action to try to fight Zach Ostapchuk landed him a double minor and 10-minute misconduct which dragged deep into the third period with no whistles, fouling up Leaf line combinations.
Two tripping calls and a hook put more pressure on the killers, who did well up to Nick Robertson’s call that put the Sharks up 5-3.
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Also sitting a bit at Berube’s order was defenceman Simon Benoit after he moved up and left Chris Tanev to defend a 2-on-1 when Wennberg scored his 100th NHL goal.
“We didn’t play very well in the first period, they were all over us and out-skated us,” Berube said. “They are a quick team and it was maybe the travel that we weren’t quite on our toes. We got better as the game went on, but we made some mistakes.”
WOLL WOBBLES
Just when you thought he was getting adept at covering for his team’s defensive errors, Woll made quite the gaffe himself.
Auston Matthews had just made it a 4-3 game in the power play when Woll cradled a puck on his stick and tried a deep pass rather than hand it off to defenceman Chris Tanev. William Eklund got in his face and Woll’s pass hit his skate and went in.
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“We all have to be better, the goalie included,” Berube said.
Both Woll and Anthony Stolarz have let in a few stinkers of late, though both set a pretty high standard earlier this season.
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THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT
The Leafs gained some redemption in the end from the two 6-on-5 goals, the extension of their recent power play success that included two goals Thursday. The Core Four poured it on, John Tavares with a key deflection via Mitch Marner before Marner and Matthews set up Nylander.
Overtime was a thrill with the aforementioned quartet all driving or weaving through the slot to goalie Aleksandar Georgiev’s doorstep trying to end it, Matthews ringing the iron. Nylander added the lone Toronto shootout goal, but Matthews and Marner were stopped.
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“We seemed slow (to start the game), didn’t seem to take care of the puck much,” Matthews said. “Just kind of messing around with it too much. They’re a young, skilled, hungry team.”
How much did a coast-to-coast plane ride affect that start?
“The schedule is the schedule, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Matthews said. “We have to find a way of playing through it.”
RECORD NIGHT
Nylander hoped to get his career high 41st and 42nd goals under better circumstances.
But firing the tying goal with 14 seconds to go was vital to the single point that Toronto took away.
“There’s a little bit of both (frustration and elation),” he said. “We could be better, but we took a point. It could be an important one.”
Matthews also passed George Armstrong for fifth place in franchise scoring, his goal representing point No. 714. Oliver Ekman-Larsson got his 500th NHL point in the game.
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