TORONTO - Vesa Toskala had stopped 19 of 21 shots against the Anaheim Ducks Tuesday night. But with the game tied 2-2 and headed to a shootout, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Ron Wilson put the call in for his closer.
It was a gamble that failed to pay off.
Though Wilson likes to describe Curtis Joseph as a shootout specialist, the Leafs backup had been sitting on the bench for 2 1/2 hours when he was inserted into the game.
His muscles were cold. His mind was not sharp. And it showed.
"That's entertainment," Joseph said.
Teemu Selanne and Corey Perry both scored in the shootout as the Ducks defeated the Leafs 3-2 at the Air Canada Centre. Toronto's Nikolai Kulemin and Tomas Kaberle were both stopped by Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere.
Toskala did not appear upset about being pulled. Sure, he would have preferred to try to get Toronto the win. But the 31-year-old had allowed four goals on five shots and lost twice in shootouts this season.
"I don't have any problem at all," Toskala said. "As a team we just have to find a way to get those points because they're going to be huge (at the) end of the season. Today we were trying this - it didn't work."
Wilson defended his decision.
"It's percentages," he said. "You guys are experts. What's their save percentages? Career-wise, they've only scored 28 per cent of the time (on Joseph). On Toskala, teams have scored 54 per cent of the time. You have to score obviously. But you also need some saves."
Toskala has a career record of 2-9 in shootout decisions. Joseph headed into Tuesday night's game with a 5-3 record and had allowed only five goals on 32 shots.
Wilson had told reporters on Monday that he was against replacing a goaltender for the shootout because of the potential injury risks. But he said that Joseph was given a heads-up well before going in.
"I told Curtis that if this goes the way that I think it's going to go, be ready," Wilson said. "I want you to start warming up late in the game in case I need to call you; like a pitcher."
Joseph failed to get the save. But Wilson said he would consider switching goaltenders again.
"Tonight it didn't work, but it's the law of averages," he said. "We're going to keep practising it. It's like a three-foot putt. If you don't practice it, you never know if you can make them. And that's all that a shootout really is, practising three-foot putts, making 100 of them in a row and that's what we have to do."
The shootout loss erased what had been a valiant late-game effort by the Leafs.
Down 2-0 in the first period, Toronto outshot Anaheim 15-4 in the second, 13-0 in the third and tied the game on a pair of goals by Nik Antropov. The Toronto forward scored once in the second period and again with 52.7 seconds remaining in the third with the Leafs' net empty for an extra attacker.
"We got our forechecking going and they wore down," Wilson said. "But we got pucks to the net."
Anaheim opened the scoring on a Francois Beauchemin point shot at 4:36.
Midway through the period, Anaheim struck again. This time it was tough guy George Parros, who went top corner with a wrist shot on a breakaway.
After the Leafs managed just one goal in two weekend games, the coaches stressed the importance of getting more pucks and bodies to the net. Through the opening 20 minutes, no one seemed to heed the message.
Toronto's supposed top line of John Mitchell, Antropov and Jason Blake was a minus-1 and did not record a single shot on net in the first period. It was only the Leafs juggled their forwards that the offence showed some sings of life.
Antropov came alive when he was teamed with Matt Stajan and Alexei Ponikarovsky.
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