Hustling Leafs outlast Hurricanes
Rookie goalie Kallgren comes up big
The Toronto Maple Leafs wore green, but saw red. They had the Carolina Hurricanes on their radar along with their auburn-haired former mate Frederik Andersen and lit the goal lamp in a 3-2 win Thursday at rocking Scotiabank Arena.
Wearing vintage Toronto St. Patricks sweaters presented the Metropolitan Division leaders with their mirror image of hustle and when losing the puck or bumped off of it, Erik Kallgren was there. He didn’t need much luck of the Irish, full marks for 35 saves and his second win on emergency recall.
The Leafs are now down to one game before Monday’s NHL trade deadline and if extra netminding was a priority, Kallgren must be giving general manager Kyle Dubas pause for thought.
It was one of the most intriguing goaltending matchups of the season. Former post-season whipping boy Andersen putting his league-leading 2.06 goalsagainst average — and 0-4 record in Toronto’s series deciding playoff games — against Kallgren in the latter’s third NHL game.
Due in part to penalties to Ilya Lyubushkin and Michael Bunting, Kallgren faced a 12-2 shot differential in the first 14 minutes and 14-6 after one period. The Swede grows more confident with each game, tall and square to the shooter.
Though the game pitted the Leafs’ No. 1 power play against the league’s best penalty killers, Toronto’s bomb squad has been sharp, too. They are handled by Dean Chynoweth, the assistant lured away from Rod Brind’amour’s staff in Raleigh to improve that portfolio. They staved off another power play in the third, after William Nylander set up Ondrej Kase to restore a two-goal lead, with Vincent Trocheck scoring for the Hurricanes with 3.6 seconds to go.
Through Chynoweth, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe has glimpsed the inner workings of Brind’amour, last season’s Jack Adams winner, and continues to hold the Canes up as a model for his own team’s aspirations for a 200-foot formula.
“The simplicity with which they play, the high standards they maintain, everybody’s on board with that and they execute at a high level,” Keefe said before the game. “We look at them a lot.”
The Leafs even generated a couple of chances while short. Ilya Mikheyev clicked between the two Toronto minors, chipping a Justin Holl feed over Andersen from in tight.
“This is the team that for a couple of years has been talked about as one of the best in the East,” defenceman Morgan Rielly said before the game. “They’re deep, they have good goaltending with Freddie and great penalty killing.
“They’ve beaten some pretty good teams, they’re structured, responsible with the puck. For us it’s being patient with the puck, not get carried away.”
That was the case a couple of times in the second period, but Kallgren came up big, including a left pad save on Brady Skjei off a turnover. That preceded a fortunate skipping puck on a breakout past a Carolina defender, freeing Mitch Marner for his 24th goal.
Carolina broke Kallgren at 4:09, pressuring the Leafs and quickly turning it into an Ethan Bear five-hole goal.