Jan 26, 2017
Leaf streak comes to an end in Philly
The Toronto Maple Leafs rode their impressive road streak into Philadelphia on Thursday, but saw the 11-game road point streak come to a grinding halt in a 2-1 loss to the Flyers.
PHILADELPHIA – The Toronto Maple Leafs rode their impressive road streak into Philadelphia on Thursday, but saw the 11-game road point streak come to a grinding halt. The Flyers scored with less than three minutes left in the third to take a 2-1 lead and hand the Maple Leafs their first loss in regulation on the road since Nov. 30. Curtis McElhinney made his second start of the season for Toronto and was sensational, stopping 32 of 34 shots and keeping the Maple Leafs alive, especially in the third. Toronto is now 9-1-2 on the road in their last 12 games.
Takeaways
Start on time, boys: The Maple Leafs do many things well, but playing from behind hasn’t been one of them. Toronto was 9-1-2 when trailing after one period entering Thursday’s game where the first period wasn’t their best effort. While they generated a couple quality scoring chances, Toronto couldn’t get in a rhythm defensively, turning the puck over too much and letting Philadelphia dictate the play in their zone. The opening goal by Wayne Simmonds was the result of a neutral zone turnover that Travis Konecny flipped to Simmonds at the blue line for him to take in alone on McElhinney. With both teams playing the second night of a back-to-back, neither was particularly strong in the first frame, but Philadelphia did a better job with their chances.
Like father, like son: Babcock said in his pre-game presser that it would take a heavy effort from Toronto to be successful against Philadelphia. While William Nylander isn’t known for being hard on the puck or an impressive net-front presence, he was upping his game all over the ice. Late in the second period, while the Maple Leafs were trailing 1-0, Nylander crashed Michal Neuvirth’s net and stayed on the puck in the crease, finally slipping it past Neuvirth to tie the game. The score revealed some shades of former NHLer Michael Nylander’s more hard-nosed game in his son. William finished the game with seven shots on goal to lead the Maple Leafs.
Just can’t connect: Toronto has the number-one ranked road power play in the NHL, but given a four-minute man advantage off a double-minor to Ivan Provorov, the Maple Leafs could barely manage a shot on goal with the extra attacker. Some of their bad habits from earlier in the season – too many drop passes, too-cute backwards passes – came back to haunt them, and ultimately led to pucks being turned over. In a tight game like this, those minutes were a gift Toronto (and their considerable special teams power) didn’t use to their advantage.
Not-so-hot in the dot: One night after they got the better of the league’s fourth-ranked faceoff team in Detroit, they were on the losing end of too many draws against Philadelphia (ranked seventh in the league). Toronto was successful on only 36 per cent of their draws, and had no wins in the third period, where they were dominated by the Flyers in all three zones. Of the four primary faceoff takers, Tyler Bozak was the only one who got above 50 per cent. The details of the game matter even more in tight-checking, tight-scoring games, and the Maple Leafs need to be consistently better on the draws.
Next game: With the exception of Auston Matthews, who will be Los Angeles-bound to represent the Maple Leafs at All-Star weekend, the rest of the team will get the next three days off. Toronto will face the Dallas Stars on Tuesday.