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The Toronto Maple Leafs and St. Louis Blues resumed where they left off last week at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday, playing wide-open throttle hockey that the fans might find entertaining, but the coaches do not. The Leafs played catch-up most of the night, falling behind by two goals on four occasions, but tying the game in the third, before losing 6-5 in a shootout.
Michael Bunting tallied twice for the second straight game (including the equalizer in the third), Pierre Engvall, William Nylander, and Auston Matthews scored for Toronto, but the Leafs struggled with turnovers and defensive structure and did not get a good performance from Ilya Samsonov, who allowed five goals on 32 shots and three in the shootout to lose for the first time on home ice, but head coach Sheldon Keefe deflected criticism away his goaltender.
“I don’t know if there is a whole lot (Samsonov) can do. The first power-play goal is bouncing all around. The second power-play goal was a rebound that he doesn’t have much of a chance on. The first five-on-five goal was right in front of him with a rebound right there, and then the last one is a real tough pass that travels a long distance to a very good and dangerous shooter.” Keefe said after the game. “I am not down on the goaltending here today. As we have talked about, when we play better as a team, everybody looks better and everybody is better. This is certainly not on the goaltending tonight.”
Toronto struggled on special teams, allowing two St. Louis power-play goals and a short-handed tally from Brandon Saad during the Leafs five-forward power play.
“I thought special teams were a mess for us in the first period and in the second. That kind of throws the game off a lot. The scores go way up, and you are feeling probably a little bit worse than you need to or should because you are pulling it out of your net three times.” Keefe said. “Power plays with one defenseman out there get scored on, too. The group has no chance to succeed if I just pull it off and change it because they got scored on. If Sammy makes a save on it, we don’t even talk about it. That is kind of the way it goes.”
The Leafs continue their three-game homestand on Thursday against the Seattle Kraken.
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The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reported on Tuesday that the Leafs have touched based with Bunting's representatives about a new contract. The Scarborough, ON native is fifth in team scoring with 29 points (13 goals, 16 assists) in 38 games and is an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.
LeBrun says that the talks are preliminary and unclear where they will go, but previous chatter has indicated that Bunting may do a long-term deal to lower his AAV.
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