In Toronto, the Maple Leafs were looking to get a win over the hapless Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday night.
It looked bleak for most of the night until Auston Matthews and William Nylander struck for late third period goals to hand the Kings another loss, 3-1.
“I think we just stayed patient throughout the whole game,” Matthews said. “There wasn’t much going on in the first two periods. We tried to stay patient and play as little in our zone as we could. It was a tight game, but we were able to get a couple of big goals in the third.”
Frederik Andersen made 24 saves in the win.
“Some people thought that was ugly, I thought it was beautiful,” Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. “We need to go through that and figure out who we are, and the harder the game is, the better it is. Would you like to win by a touchdown and everyone relaxes? Sure, but we’re not getting anywhere like that. This was important, give up one goal, play well without the puck, we had to grind. It was good for us.”
Alex Iafallo scored the lone LA goal.
“It’s certainly not ideal,” Anze Kopitar said. “It’s frustrating, yeah, but it is what it is. I think the scores are closer than what it shows in the standings. But we have to put 60-minute efforts together, not 49 or 50 because the other 10 usually hurt us, and it was no different tonight. We’re not playing awful, but we’re not playing to the level we need to play at to win games.”
Alexander Kerfoot also scored for the Leafs.
“There wasn’t much room out there,” John Tavares said. “They play very well structurally, and we just understood that our chances were going to come and that we didn’t have to force anything. There were a lot of shifts where we probably felt like we weren’t accomplishing a whole lot, but we just stayed with it and caused some turnovers which is kind of what led to our last couple of goals.”
[WATCH: All Kings vs. Maple Leafs highlights]
Jonathan Quick made 20 saves in the loss for LA (5-10-0).
“It comes down to wins and losses,” Quick said. “We lost, that’s it, move on. We have to try to get a win [against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday]. There’s always is (stuff to build on), there’s always stuff we have to correct.”
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