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Betrayed between the pipes in loss to Canucks, Bogosian injured

April 21, 2021, 9:21 AM ET [822 Comments]
Mike Augello
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The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the midst of that unusual but all-too-common phenomenon in professional sports of playing good enough to win but finding ways to lose, and it could not have come at a worse time. The once again could not hold a third period lead against the Vancouver Canucks, allowing four unanswered goals in a 6-3 loss at Rogers Arena on Tuesday.

John Tavares scored twice and Adam Brooks scored a short-handed goal early in third to put the Leafs up 3-2, but the newly acquired David Rittich failed to give Toronto even average goaltending late in the game, as Nils Hoglander’s tying goal and Tanner Pearson’s insurance marker simply went through the Leafs netminder.



In both losses, Toronto received a good enough effort from outside the goal to win, pelting the Canucks with 79 shots and scoring a pair of power play goals, but veteran Braden Holtby kept Vancouver in the game and made the saves when they were needed. After the game, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe put the onus on the club’s issues between the pipes.

“I’m concerned about our goaltending. We’ve got to get that sorted out, but I’m not concerned about our team. I believe in our group. We played well enough to win here tonight. We played well enough to win the other night. We’ve got to get better goaltending to give our group confidence here.” Keefe said after the game. “Both (Jack Campbell and Rittich), from how they’ve played here of late, are capable of better. They’ve played better in the League. We can play better in front of them. We can play better than we did tonight. Credit to Vancouver because they played hard. That was a much different game tonight, but I still feel like we did enough things to win the hockey game here today. Some things are difficult to outplay. We’ve just got to remain confident as a group.”



The two-game set was not only costly in the standings but in terms of the Leafs health, as Zach Bogosian left the game after stumbling at nearly full speed into the boards. The veteran blueliner skated off the ice and to the dressing room on his own, but did not return to the game due to an unspecified upper body injury.

“We’ll find out more in the coming days here. He wasn’t close to returning tonight and it looks like he’s definitely going to miss some time. The extent of it, I don’t have that update yet.” Keefe said.



The Leafs are implementing a plan to mix depth players into the lineup down the stretch to get them ready for the playoffs. Rasmus Sandin played in place of a healthy Travis Dermott and performed well on Tuesday, logging over 16 minutes of ice time in his second start of the season. With injuries to Zach Hyman, Ilya Mikheyev and Bogosian, the Leafs may not have much choice than to get their depth and new additions acclimated.

Nick Foligno and Ben Hutton have completed their seven-day quarantine and will travel to Winnipeg to join their new club on Wednesday and it is possible that both will be in the lineup against the Jets on Thursday.

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