Comatose Leafs Wake Up Late To Beat Hawks

The Toronto Maple Leafs needed a victory by any means possible against the Chicago Blackhawks at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday, but on “Holy Mackinaw night” honoring the great Joe Bowen in his final season behind the microphone, the patrons at 40 Bay St. through the first 50 minutes were probably saying another phrase that begins with Holy. 

The 3-2 victory over the Hawks was an embarrassing, non-plused performance from a club that got chewed out by their head coach for lackadaisical play in the third period of Saturday’s loss to Edmonton, which nearly had Craig Berube have a coronary behind the bench, as Chicago took a 2-0 lead on goals by Wyatt Kaiser and Jason Dickinson (short-handed).

“It could have been a number of things,” Berube said after the game about what caused his tirade. “Just giving up a short-handed goal, giving up a face-off goal. They shouldn’t happen, and then we get outmuscled around our net, it’s just simple things, that’s why I was pissed off.”

The Hawks settled into what they hoped was a low-event road game they could win without their scoring leader, Connor Bedard, but that was not difficult, because for the first two periods and the early part of the final frame, the Leafs were helping them along by playing what my fertile mind would playfully call “low-event offense.”

Berube once again relied on his usual tactic of line-stirring in the third period, moving rookie Easton Cowan back up with John Tavares and Nick Robertson, demoting Max Domi to the fourth line with Scott Laughton and Steven Lorentz, and reuniting Bobby McMann with Dakota Joshua and Nicolas Roy, but it was Toronto’s top two players that woke up from hibernation, as Auston Matthews and William Nylander assisted on Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s sixth of the season, and combined for Matthews game-tying power play goal with 3:09 remaining. 

Before anyone could settle back into their seats, Toronto won the center-ice faceoff and ran what looked to be a set play, where Troy Stecher from his side of the red line dumped it on net, Spencer Knight stopped the puck, but the rebound got far enough away from him that it allowed Joshua to beat Hawks defenseman Louis Crevier to the puck and beat Knight eight seconds later for the game-winner.    

Joseph Woll was sharp in his first game in nearly two weeks, stopping 23 shots for his third straight victory, and for the Leafs was sweet revenge for their 3-2 loss in Chicago one month ago in Woll’s first start of the season, where the Hawks rallied in the third and scored the game-winner with less than five minutes remaining. The improbable win was important for Toronto in their quest to keep pace and climb back into the Eastern Conference playoff race. 

The Leafs move to 15-12-5, and within three points of Montreal for the final wildcard spot and four points behind injury-riddled third-place Tampa Bay, but Toronto will need to keep winning, as they take to the road for their next three against Washington on Thursday, Nashville on Saturday, and Dallas on Sunday.