Habs spoil special evening at ACC
Leafs lose in shootout on night when they pay tribute to legends Keon, Broda and Horton
You couldn’t have blamed Dave Keon had he headed for a refreshment long before the first period ended in Saturday night’s Leafs-Canadiens tilt.
The Maple Leafs, moments after Keon joined relatives of Tim Horton and Turk Broda in a stirring pre-game ceremony to mark their additions to Legends Row, were inexplicably flat against their historic rivals.
But whether it was magic of the past being celebrated or a stern intermission speech from coach Mike Babcock, the Leafs rebounded with a crowd pleasing effort into overtime before eventually falling 3-2 in the shootout.
Lars Eller scored the deciding goal in the shootout for the Habs, which handed the Leafs their fifth loss in nine extratime games this season.
Joffrey Lupul tied the game early in the third in what was a rousing wake-up call after that confounding opening period.
The game nearly ended on several occasions after that, with Leafs goalie James Reimer stoning Montreal’s Gallagher twice on clean chances. Reimer also had a shot beat him on a sharp angle, only to roll post to post, but stay out of the net.
However, the Leafs initial response to what was an historic evening fell well below expectations, which puzzled everyone in the building and likely perturbed Babcock.
This was Leafs-Canadiens, Saturday night in Toronto, with a tremendous opening act in Keon finally being restored to the Leafs family with his induction onto Legends Row.
By the time the Leafs managed a shot, Montreal had 11 on board; two nights earlier, against Carolina, the Hurricanes had nine before Toronto notched its first.
“We didn’t do as good a job as we would have liked,” said Joffrey Lupul, who scored early in the third to tie the game at 2-2 and set the table for an entertaining finish to regulation, and an OT where the two sides went 4:11 without a whistle.
“Give them credit, they were the desperate team and they put pressure on us all over the place. We had a chat about it in here (dressing room) in the first period and we knew we had to be better.”
The Leafs were better, but they also benefited from favourable calls on two reviewed goals by the Canadiens, a hit post and a hit crossbar, and two stellar saves by Reimer on clean chances by Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher.
It actually took some energetic shifts by the Leafs’ fourth line of Byron Froese between Daniel Winnik and Rich Clune to ignite the spark in the second period and get Toronto headed in the proper direction.
“They’re allowed to be the hardest working line out there, they’re not allowed to be the best line,” Babcock said of that fourth line, which saw Clune lay out six hits in just 10 shifts over the first two periods.
So Babcock duly noted the day off, and what may have precipitated the sluggish start on game day.
It may have also been the advent of one of the more emotional hockey evenings in Toronto in some time, but whatever the case, Toronto’s detail-oriented head coach isn’t about to allow the sluggishness to continue.
Toronto now embarks on a twogame trip through Florida, where the players will be joined by their fathers in an annual father-son road trip event.
“It’s a great way to say thanks and to give back to the folks who got you here (NHL),” Babcock said.
“But we’re going to play hard, we’re going to play a lot harder than we did here.”