The marquee visitors to Scotiabank Arena continued tonight with an appearance by the Stanley Cup Championship Colorado Avalanche. The Champs hace been decimated by injuries all season long, the latest of which Arturi Lechonen with a broken finger. Add to this, Captain Gabriel Landesgog, Cal McKar and several others who’ve been out at various times.
The Leafs are coming off a rather smelly performance, losing 4-3 to the Buffalo Sabres on Monday. Calle Jarnkrok has been promoted to the first line with AM34 and MM16, while Kerfoot and Lafferty have moved to the “extra” category in the ongoing 7-11 strategy the Leafs have adopted. Luke Schen sat out after just arriving back in T.O. and Ilya Samsanov got the assignment in goal.
An awful lot has been said about Morgan Reilly’s lack of offensive contributions since returning from injury. However tonight, not only did he have the first shot at the net (goal post) but he also got the Leafs first goal going to the other side of the net off nifty Mitchell Marner and Calle Jarnkrok set-ups. With Toronto down a man, Niko Rantenan added to his goal total (now 44) from an unfortunate “own-goal” off Jake McCabe’s shin pad to tie things up. A high pace first period came to an end with solid pressure from the 1st and 2nd wave of the Toronto’s power play units.
The Colorado Avalanche would appear to be back. Spectacular rushes by Cal McKar, the omni-presence of Nate McKinnon (15 goals in last 15), the forechecking, speed and head-manning breakouts. They were full measure for their 11-4 SOG advantage. The Leafs stood tall but should consider themselves lucky to come of the second tied at ones.
Toronto came back a little stronger in the third, with a couple of key PK’s and outshooting the visitors. Back and forth these teams went until the final buzzer sent them to 3 on 3 OT. Similar to regulation, chances at both ends solved nothing and it wasn’t enough to break the tie, until Nate McKinnon won for the Champs in a shootout. A good test for both squads.
HOPPER NOTES: Ilya Samsanov was brilliant for the Leafs with a 28 save performance… Unfortunately, that dropped hi home ice record to 18-2…Colorado is the only NHL club with 3 – 30+ point + D-men…speaking of which, the Leafs have D-men on their roster…the current 7-11 alignment help get most in to play…but as most suspect, Toronto will go back to the traditional 6-12 line-up once Ryan O’Reilly comes off the injury list…SO, that means 3 of the 9 D (O’Reilly, TJ, Giordano, McCabe, Liligren, Holl, Timmins,, Schenn or Gufstasenn) will sit come April 17…please advise on which 3 it should be…Mathews had one of his better games… he admitted to Jonas Seigal in an article in the Athletic, that a nagging hand/wrist had been holding him back…even Coach Keefe admitted he’s seen more jump from AM34 recently…I don’t think I’d like to play the Avalanche in the first round…CHEERS !