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The Toronto Maple Leafs jumped on the Chicago Blackhawks early and pulled away in a 5-2 victory at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday, avoiding the club’s ongoing issues with NHL bottom dwellers.
William Nylander, Rasmus Sandin, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Conor Timmins scored for Toronto, and Ilya Samsonov made 28 saves for his 16th home victory of the season, moving the Leafs one point ahead of Tampa for second place in the Atlantic after the Lightning’s 1-0 shootout loss to Arizona.
The Leafs scored nine seconds into the game as Morgan Rielly sprung Nylander on a breakaway for his 30th goal of the season. After Sam Lafferty took advantage of a Calle Jarnkrok giveaway to tie the game, Toronto responded with three goals from Sandin, Alex Kerfoot (later taken away on video review), and Matthews. After Philipp Kurashev narrowed the lead to one 46 seconds into the second, the Leafs responded with two more tallies from Tavares and Timmins, but overall the game was sloppy and more reflective of how bad Chicago is than how well Toronto played.
“We’ve got a tired team on a back-to-back.… Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said of the Hawks after the game. “I didn’t think the game had much life to it. It is not what you come to expect in terms of what it is like to play in the NHL. There was not a lot of emotion in the game. It is a game that we are happy to get through with two points.…
Chicago appeared to be very much a team waiting for deals to be made in the next two weeks. Lafferty, a fourth-line candidate playing elevated minutes with the Hawks, is likely to be moved before March 3, was noticeable for all the right reasons, but other rumored names did not put on a good showing. Defenseman Jake McCabe was on the ice for a pair of Toronto goals and was burned by Nylander on the opening goal, while Patrick Kane was nearly invisible in spite of playing the most minutes (18:05), which did not serve to fuel the rumors of his potential trade availability in the next couple weeks.
The Leafs now have two days off before taking on the Montreal Canadiens at home for the first time. Toronto went 0-1-1 against the Habs in their meetings at the Bell Centre. *******