Nylander pair, including OT, propels Leafs to victory
There’s the William Nylander of last season. The talented, yet at times enigmatic Maple Leafs winger, scored the winner in overtime on Wednesday night, giving Toronto a 2-1 win against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Arena.
Nylander swept past Sean Monahan and beat goalie David Rittich high at 1:06 of the extra period.
That goal came after Nylander tied the game late in the third period.
A year to the day after being traded by Toronto to the Colorado Avalanche for Calle Rosen, goalie Michael Hutchinson, who then signed a two-year contract with the Leafs in October, made 21 saves.
With Hutchinson on the bench, Nylander tied the game at 18:32 of the third when he jammed the puck past Rittich during a scramble at the crease.
Until then, Rittich had stopped all 70 shots the Leafs got on him in the twogame set, including his 34 saves in a 3-0 Flames win on Monday.
The Leafs didn’t give the Flames much, though Calgary took a 1-0 lead with less than four minutes remaining in the third.
Andrew Mangiapane was left alone in front of Hutchinson and buried a shot after taking a pass from Matt Tkachuk. The defence pair of Travis Dermott and Justin Holl was caught flat-footed, and Nylander got to Mangianpane too late.
The Leafs outshot the Flames 38-21 in regulation.
The Leafs start a fivegame road trip in Edmonton on Saturday, an excursion that includes three games against the Oilers and two against the Vancouver Canucks. Toronto’s next home game is on March 9, when the Winnipeg Jets are in town to start a three-game series.
Zach Hyman, who was in pain after blocking a shot against Montreal on Saturday, returned to the lineup after missing the game on Monday. Coming out was Nic Petan.
Hyman played mostly on a line with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.
The Leafs still were without goaltender Frederik Andersen (lower body), defenceman Jake Muzzin (face) and forward Joe Thornton (lower body). All are day-today,
coach Sheldon Keefe has said.
The Leafs had 26 shots on goal through two periods and were denied by Rittich on a couple of great chances in the second.
Alex Kerfoot and Ilya Mikheyev broke down the ice on a 2-on-1 while Toronto was short-handed, and Kerfoot appeared to wait long enough before feeding Mikheyev. An open net was gone in a flash as Rittich stretched across the crease to stop Mikheyev.
Minutes later, Matthews had a clear look after taking a pass at the Calgary blue line, but again, Rittich was not going to be beaten. On the play, Matthews fell into the end boards thanks in part to a push from behind by Flames defenceman Rasmus Andersson and appeared
to jam his wrist. No penalty was called on the play.
The two had a battle going all night and took coincidental minors with eight minutes to play in the third.
Rittich overall was strong, though the Leafs fired more than a few shots from the perimeter into the Flames crest on his sweater.
The Leafs had three power plays in the first period and didn’t look good on any of them. It doesn’t help that Jimmy Vesey and Travis Boyd, neither of whom will be confused as the most offensively talented players in the game, are getting power play time with Wayne Simmonds and Joe Thornton injured.
That doesn’t let the usual power play specialists off the hook, however. The Leafs were 0-for-11 with a man advantage in the two-game set, often finding it difficult to to get into a groove.
Defensively, the Leafs didn’t give the Flames much. It’s an area in which there has been marked improvement.
For Morgan Rielly, one reason is in the increased communication among the five-man units on the ice.
“That’s an area of the game we spent a lot of time talking about, both myself personally with the coaching staff and as a defence corps, as an area that we needed to get better at,” Rielly said.
There is a positive outlook regarding the status of Andersen and backup goalie Jack Campbell. The latter has been out since Jan. 24 with a lower-body injury, but has looked sharp in recent practices.
“Our goaltending situation with both (Campbell) and Fred, is both are dayto-day,” Keefe said. “We’re trending toward (Campbell) being available on this road trip. As to when he’d be available or when we would choose to use him, haven’t made any decisions. But he’s progressing well. (Tuesday) was an important day for him and he got through it well.”
Is there concern regarding Andersen, who will miss his second game in a row?
“It doesn’t look that way,” Keefe said. “From what I’m told, he’s progressing well. We’ve had to go through the last little bit without two of our goalies, so that is concerning, but I think we’re coming out on the other side of it here soon.”