A LUONGO TIME COMING
Florida goaltender keeps the Panthers atop the Atlantic Division
Leafs forward Zach Hyman has a wall behind him in Florida defenceman Aaron Ekblad and goalie Roberto Luongo, who stopped 32 of 33 shots in the Panthers’ 4-1 win over Toronto.
Despite Morgan Rielly’s best efforts and the long-awaited appearance of another with Irish roots — Connor Brown — there was no St. Patrick’s Day miracle for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
If there was luck, it wasn’t of the Irish sort for the Maple Leafs. It was the luck of the Finn — if there is such a thing — for the Panthers. Two weird second-period goals by Jussi Jokinen led Florida to a 4-1 win Thursday night.
The win kept the playoff-bound Panthers in first place in the Atlantic Division, and kept the Maple Leafs in last place in the entire league.
Toronto missed out on a chance to win three games in a row, something they’ve done just two times this season.
It was an Irish-themed night, with Carlton the Bear wearing a Toronto St. Patrick’s jersey and with the Irish heritage of the franchise’s bigger personalities celebrated, like King Clancy, Pat Quinn, Red Kelly and Pat Burns.
But the Leafs ended up being green with envy at how, after a scoreless first period, the Panthers took a 2-1 lead in the second. Two goals by Jokinen were probably two of the strangest he has ever scored, both because Leaf players were the last to touch the puck.
The first was a pass from Jokinen on the rush that never found its target. Leafs forward Ben Smith meant well when he reached for the puck, but he ended up poking it right between Jonathan Bernier’s pads for a 1-0 Florida lead 24 seconds into the period. It would have a beautiful goal if not for being an own goal.
Later, Jokinen was battling Connor Carrick in the corner when he tried to send the puck toward the slot. Instead it deflected off Carrick’s stick and the left shoulder of Bernier, who was hugging the goalpost.
Other than that bad luck, Bernier had his third straight strong game.
The Leafs finally scored late in the second periods. It was Rielly’s eighth goal of the year — tying his career high set last year — and gave him a career high in points with 30.
Florida’s third and fourth goals — by Jaromir Jagr and Teddy Purcell — were scored into an empty net.
Brown, who replaced the injured Leo Komarov, became the third player from the Leafs’ 2012 draft class (Rielly and Victor Loov are the others) to suit up for the Maple Leafs.
“I feel like I’ve come a long way as a player, due to a lot of hard work, and it’s nice to get recognized and be noticed here,” said Brown, the 10th player to make his NHL debut this season in a Leafs uniform. “Obviously you’re a bit anxious coming here to an NHL room, but when you see a lot of the guys you’ve played most of the year with — and, being from Toronto, I’m here in the summer a lot so I know a lot of the older guys as well — it makes it that much more easy and a little bit more comfortable to settle in.”
Leafs coach Mike Babcock said Brown had played well enough to make the team out of training camp, but the team wanted to keep its younger players down with the Marlies for extra seasoning. In Brown’s case, it almost backfired when he was injured blocking a shot. He missed 37 games.
“He got injured, so that was a big setback, he was our best kid in training camp for sure and could have made our team,” Babcock said. “He got hurt, but trained hard every day. He was with our team the whole time he was hurt basically.
“His therapy, he was in our meetings and all that and continued to put on size while he was injured, which is positive. He went down and got playing good and when everyone else got called up, instead of asking why not him he just got to work. I appreciate that.
“He’s obviously got elite hockey sense, he’s going to be a good NHL player for a long period of time. We’ll get a chance to see him here tonight and for however long we’ll need him or whatever. I think (Tyler) Bozak and these guys have eventually got to come back so when they come back, these guys can’t all be here.”
Looking back to training camp, Brown said he learned a lot that he carries with him today.
“I think it was huge for my confidence to be able to just know that I can compete at this level and I felt like I had a good camp in Halifax,” Brown said. “Obviously, getting injured this year, I feel like my game is back on track where it was and it’s exciting to get recognized. I’m going to come in here and try to play with confidence and play with skill and do my best.”
In holding Komarov out of the lineup, Babcock said it was more precautionary, and that if it was a playoff game Komarov would play through it.