Leafs’ luck finally runs out against Flyers

This was one night where horseshoes, hand grenades and close games did not count for the Maple Leafs.

In its fifth straight tight encounter, four decided by a goal, Toronto gave up a late winner and fell 4-2 to the Flyers.

Up 2-1 to start the third period, the Leafs got out of step, allowed the Flyers to tie on a fluke shot and, with less than three minutes to play, Sean Couturier took a blind backpass while Nikita Zaitsev was trying to tie up his man and beat Connor Brown to the puck before snapping it over Frederik Andersen. Scott Laughton had an empty netter. The Leafs were out-shot 39-22. It was the first loss without injured leading scorer Auston Matthews, as the Leafs began a threegame trip with a conservative road show and the usual safety valve goaltending from Andersen.

Toronto was on its heels at the Wells Fargo Center for much of the second period until Nazem Kadri drew a Jakub Voracek tripping call.

The Leafs hadn’t been able to stretch their legs on many power plays of late, nine in close to five full games, none off them successful. But a nice drop pass from Mitch Marner to Morgan Rielly was tipped upstairs by James van Riemsdyk.

The 40th power play goal by the big winger since the Flyers traded him for defenceman Luke Schenn in 2012 was another reason to get the local fans grumbling about the Flyers sharing the Metropolitan Division basement with Carolina when the evening began. But the Leafs got too nonchalant, with Andersen trying for a home run pass that hit Travis Konecny in front, the same player who helped Taylor Leier get away a shot that pinballed off Dominic Moore’s stick and Roman Polak’s back and in to make it 2-2.

After it took the Flyers five minutes of first-period play to get their first shot on goal and the Leafs forecheck nearly paid off a couple of times, the teams scored 27 seconds apart.

Zach Hyman, taking a draw for Patrick Marleau, who in turn was replacing Matthews at centre on the line, cleanly lost it to Couturier in the Leafs’ zone, but no one moved to cover Claude Giroux. He stepped into his 18th goal past a stunned Andersen, leaving head coach Mike Babcock steaming at either the blown coverage or how the linesman conducted the faceoff.

Babcock sent the same line back and they converted, a 2-on-1 Marleau wrister that handcuffed Brian Elliott. For the 38-year-old Marleau it was his 1,100th point, making him the 60th NHLer to get that many, on a night he also passed Leafs president Brendan Shanahan for 16th in career NHL games at 1,525.

Radko Gudas was back for the Flyers, having served a 10game slashing suspension that cost the defenceman more than US$400,000.

The Leafs travel to play Minnesota and Detroit back-to-back on Thursday and Friday.