Nylander scores in overtime
The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost close games in strange ways this month.
They won this one with a penalty shot walk-off goal.
Six seconds into Wednesday’s extra period, William Nylander was hooked to the ice by the Blackhawks’ Duncan Keith as the Leafs worked a breakaway from the faceoff. Nylander, denied in the slot on a Chicago giveaway minutes earlier, made no mistake with a fancy deke of Jeff Glass for the 3-2 victory.
“I’ve missed a couple of breakaways, so it was pretty nice to put one away on a breakaway,” said Nylander, one of the many Leafs snake-bitten of late, with two five-game slumps sandwiching his last goal.
Wednesday was first of back-to-back road games for Toronto preceding the all-star break and the ninth straight game they’ve played decided by one goal or one and an empty netter, during which their record is 4-2-3. Like their coach Mike Babcock says, it’s a tight, tight league and very unforgiving. The Leafs now have 59 points in 50 games heading into Dallas.
“I think this is really good for us, to be honest with you,” said Leafs centre Tyler Bozak. “The longer you go the later in the year, the tighter the games get. To be involved in a lot of them now is good for our team.”
Wednesday was not without calls going against the Leafs. For the second straight game, Toronto had a goal waved off for netminder interference, though van Riemsdyk’s shove of Glass was much more blatant than Matthews brushing Jonathan Bernier on Monday. In the third period, Toronto challenged Nick Schmaltz’s goal that made it 2-2 when Artem Anisimov was toppled onto Frederik Andersen, but it was judged to have come after the puck went in.
“Rules, you never know,” Andersen said, choosing his words carefully. “We got the two points and that’s really all I have to say about it.”
Andersen will give way to Curtis McElhinney in Dallas, their rarely used backup shelved for a month by schedule quirks and an injury.
Toronto went up 2-1 early in the third as Nazem Kadri potted a puck that van Riemsdyk had hunted down, but Mitch Marner was in the box when Chicago tallied its second with the man advantage.
Jake Gardiner scored the first Leafs goal, while Brent Seabrook scored first for Chicago.