PITTSBURGH — The Toronto Maple Leafs were fewer than 30 seconds from slipping through a second period the Pittsburgh Penguins dominated and entering the final frame well positioned to take a point or two out of PPG Paints Arena on Saturday night.
Leafs goalie Joseph Woll had just stymied Sidney Crosby with a fantastic pad save on a one-timer at the lip of the crease to keep the game knotted 2-2. A few moments later, David Kampf and Jeff Carter crouched down to take a face-off to Woll’s left. Carter won the draw cleanly back to his Penguins teammate Kris Letang, who one-touched it in the direction of Erik Karlsson. The latter wound up and blasted the puck through a maze of bodies and into the back of the net.
Instead of entering the final 20 minutes one shot away from victory, the Leafs were now on the back foot. And despite the fact Toronto generated its share of quality chances in the third, it never found the equalizer it searched hard for on Saturday night and fell 3-2 to a Penguins team already desperate to pull itself closer to an Eastern Conference playoff spot.
“They scored three, we scored two,” surmised Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe. “It was a pretty even game throughout. They dominated the second period, we dominated the third period, but they got the puck to go in and we didn’t.”
Yes, the Leafs had their chances in the third to even this one up. The best, perhaps, came from Matthew Knies, who narrowly missed getting his second of the evening when — after a William Nylander fed him the puck on an odd-man rush — the rookie whipped it just wide of the net tended by Tristan Jarry.
When the Leafs did get shots on target, Jarry was solid, making 31 saves. It was the same situation at the other end of the ice, where Woll stopped 32 pucks and did all he could to deliver his squad a win.
On a night there simply wasn’t a lot to choose between the two clubs, Keefe’s blunt assessment was also the most accurate one: Pittsburgh just found a way to bury one more than the Leafs.
“It was tight,” said Toronto centre Auston Matthews, who played his 500th NHL contest versus the Penguins. “Obviously, you know, a tough one to give up last minute of the [second] period there. I thought we had some looks to tie it up, but it just didn’t go in. But I thought there was some good process throughout the game. It’s never going to be perfect. They’re a good team over there.”
If there was one bone Keefe had to pick with his club, it wasn’t actually the deflating goal in the dying seconds of the middle frame, but one that occurred midway through the middle stanza with Toronto holding a 2-1 advantage. Having raced back to the goal line to retrieve a puck on his backhand, Leafs defenceman T.J. Brodie quickly swished it along the boards to winger Nick Robertson. Rather than use the time he had to pivot and head up ice with the puck, Robertson decided to return it to Brodie.
This time, when Brodie tried to sweep it back along the boards to Robertson again, former Bud Noel Acciari got his stick in the way to pick it off. The centre made a quick shuffle above the goal line and lasered a seeing-eye shot that squeezed between Woll’s shoulder and the crossbar to even the game.
“We’ve got full possession of that puck,” Keefe said. “Our ‘D’ get it into our forwards' hands and we’ve got a chance for a very clean breakout and out we go. Instead, we give it back to the defenceman again and compound the problem and it ends up in our net. To me, that’s the game right there.”
Toronto held a couple of one-goal leads in this contest, though the first one was short-lived. Tyler Bertuzzi opened the scoring 3:59 into the contest when he parked himself right in front of Jarry and banged home a rebound from a John Tavares attempt. The game was back to even 28 seconds later, however, as Jake Guentzel tapped in a wonderful feed from Drew O’Connor to finish off a three-way passing play started by Sidney Crosby with the Leafs caught up ice.
Knies restored Toronto’s lead later in the frame when he drove to the net and whacked home a rebound generated by a good, low shot from Calle Jarnkrok.
As it happens, Knies' linemates were in the midst of a change at that point, so neither Matthews nor right winger Mitch Marner contributed to the tally. The play of that top trio has been a talking point of late, especially after they were victimized for a couple goals during Friday’s overtime loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. Matthews — despite still being tied for second in the league goal-scoring race — has now found the net just one time in his past seven outings, while Marner has just three assists to show for his past seven contests.
“It’s a little hit or miss, honestly,” Matthews said of the top line’s performance in the last little bit. “I think just the consistency has been a big thing. That can be frustrating. Sometimes we’ll pile on a couple good shifts and then there are segments throughout the game and throughout periods where we just don’t have much going on.”
Keefe has been open about the fact he’s challenged the unit to be better at different times in the past handful of games. In Pittsburgh, though, he felt like it was time to reset the conversation with the outside world about where their game is.
“I thought that line was good,” he said. “We’re getting all sorts of questions about these guys. I think we’d all agree that they could play better — they’ve set such a high standard — [but] they can play better. Yet, here we are; one of the many reports I get before every game, I’m reading through, and one of them I’m looking at is our five-on-five scoring this season and at the top of the list is Mitch Marner (with 13 points). So, a guy here that we say hasn’t played his best hockey [and] has all the hardest matchups every single night, yet is the top of our team at five-on-five scoring. So it’s interesting how it all works out. We’ll stay building our group and building our game. But let’s not pile on the negatives here.”
It’s a fair statement. But everyone knows the only thing that will curb the questions are results.
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