KADRI FINALLY BREAKS GOAL-SCORING DROUGHT
Notches his first of the season in win over Jets
WINNIPEG • Nazem Kadri was saying after Toronto Maple Leafs practice on Tuesday how he “loves” playing in Winnipeg, and that he feeds off the kind of hostile atmosphere that visiting National Hockey League teams at the Bell MTS Place often experience.
With his first goal of the 2018-19 regular season, Kadri helped kill the buzz in the building on Wednesday night, helping the Leafs to their fifth road win in five games with a 4-2 victory against the Winnipeg Jets.
Never mind, if even for a second, Auston Matthews or Mitch Marner or John Tavares.
The Leafs need Kadri, coming off back-to-back 32-goal seasons, to score and you can bet that he’s hoping the first one leads to a bushel more.
Kadri scored the Leafs’ third goal, at 11:43 of the second period, when he snapped a shot past Connor Hellebuyck on the goaltender’s short side. It helped Toronto end a two-game skid in which it had managed just a single goal, and it helped put an end to the Jets’ three-game winning streak.
Frederik Andersen had a shutout going until 4:57 of the third period, when Nikolaj Ehlers ended a 26-game slump (including the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs) with a shot over Andersen’s glove. That goal could be seen coming from a mile away, as the Jets were pressuring the Leafs from the opening faceoff of the third.
The atmosphere that gets Kadri jacked up finally was evident, and it continued when Mark Scheifele scored on a power play less than two minutes later to get the Jets to within one.
Just like that, however, the fun went out of the air. Marner made a couple of nifty moves to get a shot off, and Tavares was there to score on the rebound exactly two minutes following Scheifele’s goal.
In losses against the Pittsburgh Penguins and the St. Louis Blues, the Leafs didn’t help themselves much, playing with little determination in the offensive zone.
Toronto did have some defensive-zone hiccups versus Winnipeg, but otherwise was cleaner in front of Andersen than it was in the previous two games. And for the most part, especially in the early going, the Leafs on the forecheck gave the bigger Jets defencemen all they could handle.
Tyler Ennis scored his first goal as a Leaf at 2:25 of the second period, demonstrating the kind of hands that made him a threetime 20-goal scorer with the Buffalo Sabres. Ennis deftly deflected a Josh Leivo shot past Hellebuyck, who didn’t get a read on the tip.
The Leafs had an abundance of scoring chances in the first period before Kasperi Kapanen finally got through at 14:38, beating Hellebuyck high on the blocker side after the Jets turned the puck over.
Kapanen, of course, is making it easier for the Leafs to move along without William Nylander, who may or may not re-sign with Toronto any day now.
Kapanen has five goals in 10 games and is becoming a potential fly in the ointment for the Leafs financially, considering he is a restricted free agent next summer.
Patrik Laine, quiet through much of the first 20 minutes, fired a shot off the crossbar behind Andersen as the final minute of the first period was being announced.
The Leafs didn’t have the services of defenceman Travis Dermott, who had Toronto’s best Corsi mark (58.2 per cent) through the first nine games. Dermott could not play because he was sick, so in came Martin Marincin in his third game of the season.
The Leafs and Jets meet again on Saturday in Toronto, with the Jets making a stop in Detroit to play the Red Wings on Friday.