Ovechkin overwhelms the Leafs
Great 8’s three-goal effort lifts the Capitals to victory on Hockey Fights Cancer Night
TORONTO — The Maple Leafs certainly had a better start, but it was Alex Ovechkin’s finish that ultimately mattered.
With a lineup shuffle at the end of back-to-back games to freshen the roster against the Washington Capitals, Toronto tried to get some unconventional goals from bad angles with a reinstated fourth liner Matt Martin making his presence felt after steaming about being scratched in Carolina.
But despite outshooting the Caps 11-7, Toronto failed to score for the sixth straight time in the first period after leading the league in that department up until this week. In fact, they trailed 2-0, thanks to the ever potent shot of Ovechkin, and eventually fell 4-2 in a physical affair on Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre.
Given space to move through the neutral zone — and time to let a chorus of boos build up — Ovechkin snapped his first goal past Curtis McElhinney, who gave Frederik Andersen a break after his heroics in Raleigh on Friday night and before a busy western Canadian road trip.
Late in the opening frame, with Ron Hainsey in the penalty box for delay of game, T.J. Oshie won a draw back to the Great 8, who golfed a rolling puck through.
He added an empty netter with 8.7 seconds left for his second hat trick against the Leafs.
Ovechkin and the Caps had a little extra inspiration on Hockey Fights Cancer Night.
Alex Luey, a youth hockey player and cancer survivor from Niagara Falls, Ont., who had his right leg amputated, spent the day with the team, read out coach Barry Trotz’s starting lineup, participated in their pre-game hallway pump-up ritual and watched warm-up from the bench.
In a Rogers Hometown Hockey segment which aired on Sportsnet earlier this season, Luey mentioned Ovie was his favourite player and the latter got in touch to set up Saturday’s itinerary.
Saturday night’s effort gives Ovechkin 62 points in 44 regular season career games against the Leafs.
Jakub Vrana, one of the newcomers since last spring’s playoff victory over Toronto, then out-legged Nikita Zaitsev to score a breakaway goal in the second period.
The Leafs came out of the dressing room to start the third period in slingshot fashion with rejigged lines. The result was an early goal by Jake Gardiner through traffic, then Zaitsev scored on a nice rush of his own to make it 3-2 with 13:06 to go.
Before Friday’s game, coach Mike Babcock said benching of Martin and Dominic Moore and the insertion of forwards Josh Leivo and Nikita Soshnikov was a one-game move. The coach’s mindset didn’t change after Leivo scored a nice goal, his touch and quick release being one of his advantages over Martin.
“It’s situational,” Babcock said Saturday morning.
“Look at our group last year. We played the same guys every night, whether they played good or bad. This year, we want to win every night. So sometimes we think there is a better lineup to help us win that game.”
Meanwhile, Nazem Kadri’s personal best and Leaf team-high ninegame points streak came to an end.