NEW YORK - Vesa Toskala could use a break.The Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender stopped all 32 shots he faced against the New York Rangers on Friday night, but his team failed to bail him out, losing 1-0 in a shootout.
"We wasted a great effort from Vesa," said Toronto forward Matt Stajan. "He got that point for us."
Toskala is not expected to play when the Leafs face the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday. On Friday night, however, it was Rangers goaltender Steve Valiquette who was given the night off.
In a poor display of offence, Toronto managed only 21 shots through three full periods and a five-minute overtime against the New York backup netminder.
Toskala was not so lucky. As usual, the Toronto goaltender was the reason why his team had a remote chance of picking up two points.
The Leafs were the weaker team for most of the game, but Toronto was particularly awful in the third. Outshot 13-4 and short-handed on three occasions, the game should never have reached overtime.
"Outstanding. He was awesome (Friday night)," said Leafs rookie defenceman Luke Schenn. "He was the one who kept us in the game, for sure. In the third period, he came up with some big saves. He was our best player."
In the overtime shootout, Nikolai Zherdev and Frederik Sjostrom scored for New York, while Nikolai Kulemin potted Toronto's only goal. Matt Stajan and Jason Blake were both stopped by Valiquette.
"I think the first and second (periods), that was the new Leafs style," Toskala said of his team's conservative mode. "But we haven't been able to keep it together for 60 minutes.
"I guess we have to be happy with the one point."
For the second time in four games, the Leafs faced a team's No. 2 goaltender.
Montreal gave Carey Price the night off in a 6-1 win against Toronto last week. Friday night, it was Henrik Lundqvist who rested, because the Rangers face the Stanley Cup-champion Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night.
Based on how much offence Toronto managed to create Friday, there would have been no harm in having Lundqvist play.
The Leafs managed 12 shots in the first two periods, but few threatened to go in.
With neither team providing much in the way of offence, a Marc Staal bodycheck injected life into what had been a listless hockey game through the opening 20 minutes.
Stajan was attempting to deke around Paul Mara early in the second period when Staal levelled him with a solid hit. That prompted Leafs forward Jamal Mayers to fight Staal on his teammate's behalf.
The sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden crowd suddenly came to life. And the players followed suit.
On the ensuing shift, New York's Colton Orr tried to shove Nik Antropov over the boards and into the Toronto bench. Moments later, Aaron Voros dropped Leafs defenceman Jonas Frogren in a mid-ice collision.
Of course, aggression did not translate into goals. For that, Toskala was partially to blame.
The season is young, but the diminutive goaltender is already putting together a resume of highlight-reel saves. Friday night, he stopped all 17 shots he faced in the opening 40 minutes. That included robbing Scott Gomez of a sure goal, using his blocker hand to grab a puck that was rolling over the goal-line.
Toskala also received some help from a goaltender's best friends: the posts.
Midway through the third period, Gomez believed he had finally solved the Finnish netminder. The Rangers forward took a slapshot from top of the faceoff circle that beat Toskala, but the puck bounced off both posts and never crossed the goal-line.
"Vesa played very well when we needed him," said Leafs head coach Ron Wilson.
"For sure, he came up with some big saves. Obviously, he needed a little bit of luck. On that one shift, (Gomez) hit the posts twice. He gave us a great effort."
No comments:
Post a Comment