TORONTO — In the two weeks since these clubs last met, much had seemingly changed for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The tides had shifted.
Riding a stretch of six losses in seven games heading into that tilt with the Montreal Canadiens two Saturdays ago, the Maple Leafs found themselves on the wrong end of a 5-2 shellacking, their Atlantic rivals handing them yet another L. Then came the turnaround. A gutty overtime win in Columbus. A minor setback in Washington, followed by a string of three promising road wins that saw Toronto outscore their hosts 16-4 all told.
Before the dust had settled on the last of those tilts, the Maple Leafs were already looking ahead to this one.
“We needed this. We needed that energy, and we’re just going to try to bring that home,” Matthew Knies said Thursday night. “We’ve got a tendency to be flat at home, but we’re going to come Saturday and give some payback to these guys in Montreal.”
For a 20-minute stretch Saturday night, under the Scotiabank Arena lights, it seemed like Craig Berube’s squad was intent on living up to that declaration. Until the Canadiens came out flying in the second period, put the Maple Leafs on their heels, and forced the haphazard hosts to abandon the approach that had them thriving this past week.
“I thought we came out with the right mindset, did some good things. Second period, we turned pucks over — that’s basically what it boiled down to,” Berube assessed after the dust settled on a 2-1 shootout win for the Habs. “We put ourselves on three-quarter ice. Basically, Montreal owned that period. Because of turnovers.”
The pair sat level through the opening frame, trading chances, neither able to break through, neither truly tilting the game in any direction. But Montreal took the ice in the second and rolled over their hosts, outshooting Toronto 14-3, and drawing first blood courtesy of a tidy Cole Caufield power-play marker.
“We were struggling getting the puck out. At the same time, they pinned us in there for a couple long shifts,” veteran defender Oliver Ekman-Larsson said. “It felt like we were a little bit stubborn to chip it in and go after them, and put it behind. We’ve been doing that for the last two, three games, but tonight we were a little bit stubborn.”
“Trying to do too much,” added Scott Laughton. “We talked about it this morning. Playing against Carolina and Florida, they force you to play quick and simple. These guys kind of sit back, and we weren’t able to get through it. We were trying to make too many plays, not go north. It put a lot of pressure on our D to go back for pucks.
“We need to clean that up. … We found a way to get a point and keep moving forward, but definitely didn’t have our best stuff.”
The depth centreman played a crucial role in helping Toronto wrestle a point out of the night, wiring home a short-handed breakaway slapper midway through a better third-period effort from the blue-and-white. Pivotal, too, was netminder Dennis Hildeby, thrown into a leading role once again by injuries to Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz.
There’s little doubt Toronto isn’t leaving the rink with a point Saturday night without Hildeby’s steady performance between the pipes. The Jarfalla, Sweden product came up particularly clutch in the moments after Caufield broke open the deadlock, stymying Ivan Demidov on a partial breakaway minutes after the goal, shutting down Zack Bolduc on a quality chance not long after, preventing the stumble from snowballing.
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In the end, after 33 saves on 34 shots from the 24-year-old, it took a dice-roll shootout for Montreal to take down the towering Swede.
“Dennis kept us in that game. He gave us a chance to get points out of it,” Ekman-Larsson said of his countryman. “He’s been really good. Last year, he was really good when he got the chance to come in and play, and this year, he seems like he took that to the next level with the confidence and poise.”
“He’s been great,” added Laughton. “Kept us in it. Huge saves, huge saves in overtime. He’s been solid from camp, right from Day 1. He’s been good every game I’ve seen him. We’re going to need that going forward here.”
It was on the other side of the sheet that it all fell apart for Toronto in this one. While the early going showed glimpses of the side that’s been funnelling pucks into the back of the net over the past week, the Canadiens’ middle-period assault pushed the Maple Leafs off their game, their finishing ability abandoning them.
“We missed the net like 15 times tonight, at least,” Berube said of his squad. “Good opportunities too. We’ve got to hit the net on those opportunities. The power play’s got to come through for us. And it didn’t.
“We responded in the third and played a much better period. Played behind them more, got to our game, and we had some opportunities there with some plays and situations — but we can’t go missing the net on grade-A opportunities. We shot ourselves in the foot.”
Toronto had its chances to swing things in its favour on the man-advantage, getting an opportunity early in the first, another in the second after Montreal had taken its one-goal lead, and another late in the third with a chance to complete the comeback.
There were few moments, on any of the three opportunities, that saw the blue-and-white truly test netminder Jakub Dobes.
“Right now, what I see when I watch it is they’re unsure of themselves a little bit,” Berube said. “In particular, the power play in the second period — we moved it well, and we don’t take a shot. The shots are there — we’re not taking them. And then when we do take a shot, it’s probably the wrong time.
“They’re not feeling too good about themselves out there. Obviously, they’re not seeing it right now. We’ve got to work through it. That’s all we can do.”
