What a great win for the Maple Leafs as they survived the late game push by Los Angeles. It was the Kings first regulation loss of the season and a big two points for the Leafs as they rebound with a win after losing against the Senators a couple nights before.
The Kings have been strong in the early goings of this season but the Leafs battled hard when they were not generating a lot of chances. They drove the net hard and played the body which eventually got under the skin of Jonathan Quick as he took a penalty against Komarov in the dying minutes of the game. Without pointing any fingers, if the Leafs didn’t cough up the puck on the power play and allow another shorthanded goal they would have had that game sealed up. But the Kings Trevor Lewis made no mistake and buried the puck behind Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen who was busy all night.
The Leafs fourth line was quite dangerous in last night’s game with Marner having an excellent game and his partner in crime Matt Martin scoring a big goal. Martin also scored a goal for the Leafs and got into a fight and laid the body 3 times.
Matthews and Nylander fired a lot of pucks on net but couldn’t beat Quick as they generated 13 shots between the two of them. It was a much better game for the Leafs in terms of coughing up the puck; they only had 5 giveaways total which is a lot less than normal. Komarov led the Leafs with 7 hits and did a good job at getting under the skin of the Kings with his aggressive fore check.
Roman Polak had his first game back and didn’t waste any time getting on the scoresheet as he assisted on Matt Martin’s goal and found himself in the penalty box just a shift or two later. Overall Polak looked decent and should help stabilize the Leafs defense for the time being.
Andersen really had a strong game for the Leafs and was a big reason why they won. He wishes he could have had Kempe’s goal back but he made a number of other saves that kept the Leafs confident and ahead on the scoreboard. The Leafs are in good company at the top of the Eastern Conference just a point back of Tampa Bay. Just to put some perspective on how many goals Toronto is scoring, the Leafs have 40 goals in 9 games, the Canadiens have 13 goals in 8 games. That’s quite a margin of difference between the top scoring team in the league and the team with the least amount of goals.
I feel Marner's goal should have counted for what it's worth. What do you think?
The Leafs will have to continue to keep the puck out of their own net and only letting in two goals against a red hot Los Angeles Kings team is a good start in the right direction. It was nice to see the boys bounce back after that ugly loss to the Senators on Saturday evening.
Toronto will have two nights off and then host the Carolina Hurricanes and then the Flyers on Saturday night.
The way Mitch Marner played last night, collecting two assists and setting up numerous other quality chances (JVR whiffing a tap in) it won’t be long before we see Mitch back in the top nine. It was also nice to see JVR back on the ice after that injury scare, he’s been great for the Leafs this season and it would have been unfortunate for him to be out for any length of time.
So far so good in Leafs land.
Thanks for reading, have a great day!