Kadri goal fuels rally in Raleigh
Centre ends 15-game drought, Leafs win fifth in six games
RALEIGH, N.C.— Relief. That’s what Nazem Kadri felt when his snap shot went past Cam Ward on Friday night, a third-period goal that helped the Maple Leafs rally to a 2-1shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes.
“It was relief,” Kadri said, after his goal with 3:33 left in the third forced overtime and the shootout. “We needed a goal. It came at a good time. Everyone contributed.
“I was the lucky one. Finally got myself a bounce. Found myself in the right spot at the right time and I was able to put it in.”
Kadri, the Leafs first-line centre, hadn’t scored in the 15 previous games. He was asked if he had gotten a monkey off his back, or was it more like King Kong?
“It was getting big,” he said. “But honestly, the longer it went on the more I forgot about it. It was hard the first few games.
“It was a unique situation. Normally when that happens, I’m not really happy with my game. But I was able to do all the little things right and we were finding ways to win.”
Never was that more true than Friday night’s performance. The Hurricanes deserved a better fate but, like the Leafs earlier in the season, they haven’t able to put games away. The Leafs were outplayed, especially in the second period when James Reimer was at his best. The Leafs’ goaltender, who wasn’t beaten until the third was almost eight minutes old, turned aside 33 of 34 Carolina shots.
Joffrey Lupul notched the shootout winner.
“A good two points for us,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “Let’s be real honest, they were better than we were. We hung in there. To win in the shootout is positive. It’s not going to be pretty every night, especially on the road. You have to stick with it, find ways to win and be resilient and get it done.”
“When you’re a good team, that’s what you do.”
The Leafs have now won five of their past six games and are part of a big pack of teams in the bottom third of the Eastern Conference. They play Boston on Saturday night — Reimer will start again — with a chance to leapfrog the Bruins, one of the teams in front of them.
“Everyone’s excited,” Kadri said. “We’ve got momentum, we’ve got confidence. That’s what it’s all about. To be a good team, you’ve got to believe in yourself. You’ve got to believe, especially on the road, you can come into other teams’ buildings and produce and get wins.”
Babcock was happy that Kadri finally broke his slump.
“I thought he’s done a real good job of not focusing on it, just playing real well without the puck,” Babcock said. “After a while, it’s got to start weighing on you. It’s good for him and good for us. We need him to generate offence for us. That’s important.”
More interesting, perhaps, is Babcock’s decision to stick with Reimer in back-to-back games.
“I’m not concerned about him at all,” the coach said. “(Earlier in the season), I thought he was wound up. And I thought the game took a toll on him and his preparation.
“He’s way more relaxed now. He’s relaxed when he plays. He’s relaxed in his preparation.”
With the Leafs and Hurricanses looking like mirror images of each other — Carolina coach Bill Peters was once a Babcock assistant in De- troit — the game had the feel that the smallest mistake could make the biggest difference.
It looked like that might have happened when Carolina’s Brad Malone, behind the goal line, banked a shot off Reimer’s pad and into the net to break a scoreless tie. But then Elias Lindholm took a penalty for putting his hand on the puck on the faceoff, giving Toronto a power play that Kadri capitalized on.