Maple Leafs give 40,000 fans a show with OT win
Player participation in 2018 Olympics still up in the air
TORONTO — Auston Matthews scored in regulation and overtime in his first outdoor game, leading the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 5-4 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday in the Centennial Classic at BMO Field.
In a game delayed 30 minutes at the start because of sun on the ice, Matthews won it with the 20th of his rookie season after the Maple Leafs blew a three-goal lead in the third period. Anthony Mantha tied it for Detroit with 1.1 seconds left.
Leo Komarov, Mitch Marner, and Connor Brown also scored for Toronto, and Frederik Andersen made 33 saves. The Maple Leafs have won five straight to improve to 17-12-7.
Mantha scored twice for Detroit, Jonathan Ericsson and Dylan Larkin added goals and rookie Jared Coreau stopped 23 shots. The Red Wings dropped to 16-16-5.
It wasn’t an entirely full house at BMO with scattered empty seats among the 40,818 in attendance. The rink itself was placed on a tableau of the No. 100, signifying both the centennial season for both the Leafs and NHL.
Before the game, the NHL revealed the first 33 players on its 100 greatest players list, a group that included former Red Wings great Gordie Howe and former Leafs goalie Johnny Bower.
After Mantha opened the scoring in the second period, the teams combined for seven goals in the third.
Komarov tied it 1:23 into the final frame. Fed by Jake Gardiner, who fetched a loose puck in the corner of the Detroit zone, Komarov stuffed his sixth goal of the season past Coreau.
Marner put the Leafs ahead at 8:23, storming past Mantha and into the slot before beating Coreau. Fed from behind the net by fellow rookie Zach Hyman, Brown scored 1:11 later. Matthews scored at 12:05.
Ericsson and Larkin scored less than two minutes apart to cut the deficit to one. Mantha tucked a shot into the net with 1.1 seconds left in regulation. Andersen was down and out on the play after slight contact with Thomas Vanek in the crease. The play was reviewed, but ultimately confirmed.
DUCKS 4, FLYERS 3 (SO): In Anaheim, Calif., Corey Perry scored the decisive shootout goal, Ryan Kesler had a hat trick and goalie John Gibson
made 52 saves to set career and franchise records in the Ducks’ shootout victory over Philadelphia.
Kesler had his fourth career hat trick and the first since April 7, 2011, with Vancouver. Gibson faced a career-high 55 shots, falling two shy of the club record. Jonathan Bernier, who played briefly in the second period, made one save
Philadelphia had a season-high 55 shots and limited Anaheim to 25 shots on goal. Travis Konecny, Sean Couturier and Brayden Schenn scored for the Flyers, and Steve Mason made 23 saves.
CAPITALS 2, SENATORS 1: In Washington, defenseman Taylor Chorney broke a tie early in the third period with his first goal of the season and Washington held on to beat Ottawa.
Chorney’s shot from the point beat goalie Mike Condon through a screen. The defenseman has three goals in 130 NHL games in parts of seven seasons.
Karl Alzner also scored, and Braden Holtby stopped 23 shots. Kyle Turris scored for Ottawa.
OLYMPIC UNCERTAINTY: NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Players’ Association executive director Donald Fehr offered competing visions Sunday on the likelihood that NHL players will attend the next Winter Olympics.
Speaking ahead of the Centennial Classic, Bettman reiterated that NHL owners were reluctant to return for a sixth consecutive Olympics. Fehr, on the other hand, said he was “more optimistic now than I ever have been” that players would go to South Korea in 2018.
Fehr said he was confident that a deal would be reached with the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee that would allow for that possibility.
Bettman, however, said there was nothing new to report from early December when the NHL’s Board of Governors met in Palm Beach, Florida, and voiced “strong negative sentiment” to the Pyeongchang Games, citing the challenges of a season shutdown, the lack of tangible benefit to the league and the IOC’s resistance to covering out-of-pocket payments for players.
He said there had been no further discussions with the IOC or the IIHF “and absent some compelling reason I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of sentiment on the part of the clubs to go through the disruption of taking almost three weeks off during the season.
The NHL recently began working on two separate schedules for the 2017-18 season, one that would include the Olympics and one that wouldn’t.