Leafs’ special teams continue to struggle
NEW YORK — Never mind the inflight movie when the Maple Leafs fly from here to Denver on the next stage of their long road trip.
How about another video review of the power play, which has gone from statistical anomaly to an area of concern? It’s latest 1-for-18 skid kept the Leafs on the bottom half of the NHL special teams chart sinking near 20 per cent. A chance to put away the scuffling Rangers, who have one of the league’s poorest penalty kills, saw four chances missed in a 4-1 loss Sunday at Madison Square Garden. It denied the Leafs a fifth straight win.
From a crazy seven-shot sequence on their first swing with the man advantage to pucks that bounced off posts and stayed out, it was a heroic game by Bulgarian-born netminder Alexandar Georgiev.
Starting in favour of Henrik Lundqvist, who has been unable to keep his save percentage against Toronto over .900, Georgiev was outstanding on his 23rd birthday.
Through two periods, Toronto’s shots with the extra man were tallied at 23 on the way to a season-high 56 overall. Nazem Kadri and John Tavares came closest to scoring.
Playing on Saturday in Montreal, the Leafs had little left in the third period when a Jake Muzzin clearing attempt was stopped at the blue-line by Adam McQuaid, who beat Garret Sparks using Auston Matthews as a screen. Kevin Hayes had an empty netter.
Head coach Mike Babcock sounded flummoxed before the game when the power play and its measly four goals since Christmas was brought up.
“We have five really good players and Jim (Hiller, an assistant coach) does a really good job with the scheme, but right now we’re pressing,” Babcock said. “We’re not executing. Not on faceoffs, not on breakouts, not in the zones.
“We talked about that today, I thought Jim did a good job. If you think about our group, you’d be excited to play on it. Get out there and get excited. We might need it tonight.”
That was an understatement.
It took the Rangers just 28 seconds to score after a Morgan Rielly giveaway. No. 2 goalie Sparks made two good saves before a clearing attempt also failed and the hot Mika Zibanejad put it in.
Kasperi Kapanen, blanked on seven shots in Montreal, picked off a soft cross-ice pass from Tony DeAngelo and bagged his 16th of the year.