The Toronto Maple Leafs held a scrimmage at the Ford Performance Centre on Saturday, with Team Blue winning 2-0 over Team White on the strength of two Nick Robertson goals. Anthony Stolarz and Artur Akhtyamov shared the shutout.
“I thought the intensity was good, I thought the guys were trying to do the right things out there,” Head coach Craig Berube said afterward. “It wasn’t like summertime shinny hockey, so I was pretty happy with the scrimmage.”
The news on Day 3 of camp was the list of injuries increasing, as center Nicolas Roy (lower body), defenseman Simon Benoit (upper body) and goalie Joseph Woll (illness) did not participate in the scrimmage. Berube indicated that the former Golden Knight was “a little knicked up”, while he did not elaborate on the status of Benoit and Woll.
Max Domi, who has worked exclusively with the club’s development staff before team workouts and Berube indicated that he expects Domi will practice with the non-playing group on Sunday, while the rest of the squad will travel to Kanata, ON to open the exhibition schedule against the Ottawa Senators on Sunday afternoon.
The Leafs head coach has been impressed with Morgan Rielly thus far in camp. The club’s top defenseman took a bunch of criticism from the fan base last year for his 41-point performance, in spite of there being a direct correlation between his point decrease and not being on the club’s top power play. Rielly came to camp six pounds lighter and appears to be ready to accept the challenge that was laid down by Berube and GM Brad Treliving.
“If you watched (Morgan) out there today, his skating ….he moved extremely well. He was up in the play, he looked very confident to me.” Berube said. “(Rielly) prepared this summer extremely well. Whether a guy drops weight, maybe some guys put weight on, everybody’s different. But it’s just the preparation and how hard he worked this summer.
