In Toronto, the Maple Leafs’ Justin Holl scored with less than two minutes left in the third period to snap a 2-2 tie and send Toronto to a 3-2 win over the visiting Ottawa Senators on Saturday.
“I kind of saw an opportunity [for] a drop pass, or if not I would just take somebody with me, but as it turns out, two guys went to Mitch [Marner] and I had a little space to get to the net and was able to put it in,” Holl said.
“It is true [I’m not known for scoring goals] for sure, so it’s always good to pot one and help the team win.”
Ilya Samsonov made 26 saves in the Maple Leafs win.
“[Samsonov] looked really calm and settled in the net,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “You could tell he grew from one start to the next. That’s what you are looking for is a guy to get comfortable. Not expecting to start, but it changes your day, your plans, and all those kind of things, but it didn’t look like he missed a beat, so that was good to see.”
The Senators’ Claude Giroux had tied the game, 2-2, earlier in the frame.
“We defended really well and then we let them get to the net there with two minutes to go,” Ottawa coach D.J. Smith said. “It’s really disappointing, but if we play like that we’re going to win lots of games.
“We’ve got to be a little more desperate [on the winning goal]. We’ve got to knock people down and we were fishing for the puck.”
Shane Pinto scored a power play goal to give the Sens a 1-0 lead in the first period.
David Kampf and William Nylander also had strikes for the Maple Leafs.
“It was a competitive game,” Toronto’s Michael Bunting said. “They made changes and added some elite players. You can’t give them much because their skill will show. I thought we did a really good job with that. We didn’t let them have a lot of odd-man rushes and not a lot of chances. I thought we possessed it really well in their offensive zone. It was a really tight game, came down to one goal with two minutes to go. I thought we played pretty well.”
Anton Forsberg made 29 saves in the Senators loss.
“We liked the way we played,” Giroux said. “Obviously we need to clean up a few things, but overall we played a way better game than [the 4-1 loss Thursday to the] Buffalo [Sabres] and I feel like we took a little step. It’s early in the season. Obviously you want to have a good start to the season, but at this point 0-2, now we are going home and just have to feel comfortable with our game knowing what we have to do and follow the game plan. If we do that for 60 minutes, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win more often.”
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