Cowboy & The Beast Lead Leafs To OT Win

The Toronto Maple Leafs were successfully stymied offensively by the Philadelphia Flyers for the first 50 minutes of their contest on Thursday, and it did not look promising for the Leafs after Troy Stecher’s tripping penalty gave the Flyers a lengthy five-on-three power-play. The Leafs, with Scott Laughton on the ice for most of the man disadvantages in his return to Philadelphia after being acquired by Toronto last March, killed the 52-second five-on-three, and all but three seconds of the five-on-four before scoring a short-handed goal to tie the game. 

The former Flyer had his best game as a Leaf, winning a remarkable 19 of 20 faceoffs in just over 14 minutes of ice time, and along with rookies Easton Cowan and Dennis Hildeby, led Toronto to a 2-1 overtime victory to keep pace in the wild Eastern Conference.

The Kids Were Alright

Hildeby was remarkable in his 11th start of the season, making a number of acrobatic saves to keep the score at 1-0 after Travis Konecny’s second-period goal gave Philadelphia the lead. The big Swede stopped 22 shots, but the degree of difficulty made up for the lack of shot volume. His stops on Trevor Zegras in the third and on a breakaway in overtime gave Toronto a chance to earn valuable points, and hopefully will convince head coach Craig Berube not to go so heavily on the workload of Joseph Woll and/or Anthony Stolarz. 

The overtime was as wild and chaotic as any we’ve seen in years, as the Leafs overhandled the puck on a number of occasions that led to the Zegras breakaway and another chance. Cowan nearly ended the game on a breakaway, but could not beat Flyers goalie Dan Vladar, and the ensuing counterattack led to a two-on-one and a mad scramble around Hildeby with Morgan Rielly preventing Couturier from netting the winner, before the Leafs went the other way on their own two-on-one, with John Tavares setting up Cowan for the game winner. 

The win improves Toronto’s record to 6-0-2 in their last eight games and 49 points, just one point behind Buffalo and two points behind Pittsburgh, who occupy the two Eastern Conference wildcard spots. 

The Leafs return home to take on the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday, and a further sign that the club will have leading scorer William Nylander back in the lineup was revealed on Friday when the club sent center Jacob Quillan back to the AHL Toronto Marlies. 

Here Come The Rumors

Trade chatter is beginning to percolate regarding Toronto with their rise in the standings, as TSN’s Darren Dreger reported on Wednesday’s Insider Trading that Leafs GM Brad Treliving is looking to add some blueline help prior to the March 6th trade deadline. Both Dreger and Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos speculated on Toronto radio Friday morning regarding the possibility of the Leafs shopping a goaltender with Hildeby establishing himself and signed for another two years at under $1 million. 

With the lack of draft capital, dealing Anthony Stolarz once he returns to the lineup and establishes that he is healthy would be the preferable direction taken by Treliving, but with the veteran’s four-year extension kicking in next season, moving the 31-year-old netminder might be a tough task.