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The Toronto Maple Leafs benefited from an opportunistic power play and took advantage of a shaky Michal Neuvirth performance in their 4-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday, but the main reason for their second straight victory was goaltending of Frederik Andersen.
Wayne Simmonds and rookie William Nylander exchanged goals on the man advantage in the first, but the key moment in the game was Andersen’s pair of stops on Brayden Schenn and Michael Del Zotto after Jake Gardiner got caught up the ice. The saves were a turning point, as Tyler Bozak scored the go-ahead goal moments later at midway point of the game.
Andersen made 36 stops (including 19 in the third period) for his 26th win of the season, but it appears the big Dane will have to repeat that kind of performance with the current state of the defense to get Toronto into the playoffs.
“We're so confident with him back there – with both of our goalies back there.… Bozak said following the game. “Just the calm presence he has when he's making those scrambling, big saves, he makes it look so easy. We feed off of that. He played unreal for us tonight and gave us a chance to win. It was nice we were able to get it done.…
Babcock appears to be ready to make a change on the blueline. Alexey Marchenko did not play the final 15 minutes against Philadelphia (11:32 TOI for the game), as the Leafs coach went with five defensemen in crunch time.
With Connor Carrick still out of action, Babcock may insert Martin Marincin back into the lineup on Saturday against the Carolina Hurricanes.
“We think (Marchenko) has done a real good job, but we’ve been thinking we should get (Marincin) in for awhile.… Babcock said on Friday. “We probably would have made it before the Detroit game, but he was from Detroit and we didn’t want to do that.…
Once again, the Islanders matched the Leafs victory with a win of their own, as Andrew Ladd scored in overtime to give New York a 4-3 victory in Vancouver.
Toronto trails Boston by two points for third place in the Atlantic and New York by one point for the second wild card spot. Tampa Bay remains three points in back of the Leafs after a 4-1 win over Minnesota, but the Lightning suffered a trio of injuries, as forwards Vladimr Namestnikov, Tyler Johnson and Cedric Paquette all left the game and did not return.
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