In Toronto, the Maple Leafs’ William Nylander snapped a 2-2 with the New York Islanders on Sunday in a 4-2 win.
“We’ve put in a lot of work this season, over the summer, and it’s nice to see some results, but in the end that’s not the big result that we want,” Nylander said.
Jack Campbell made 27 saves. in the Maple Leafs win.
Toronto is six points clear of the Tampa Bay Lightning for the second spot in the Atlantic Division.
“It’s hard to replace an Auston, I don’t know if you can,” Campbell said. “No disrespect to anybody else, but he does so many world-class things. He just means so much to our dressing room, on the ice and off the ice. But man, what a great opportunity it was for everybody to step up without him tonight, and I thought everybody battled super hard and got a big win.”
The loss eliminated the Isles from the post season race.
“We knew what the odds were and all that, so I think we’d come to the realization a while ago, but we’ve just continued to play,” New York coach Barry Trotz said. “We had to make up a lot of games. We had those five games a week for a number of weeks and tanks are a little bit low but at the same time, this group will play to the end.
“Today, I thought we were OK in the first (period), second we weren’t very good. We had a little push after the (5-on-3) penalty kill, but we gave them three [goals].”
The Islanders’ Anthony Beauvillier and Leafs Mitchell Marner traded goals in the first period.
Josh Bailey scored 31 seconds into the middle frame to retake the lead for New York.
“It’s disappointing for sure,” New York’s Ryan Pulock said. “Obviously we knew a couple of months ago we had dug ourselves a hole and we were going to have to fight to the end to try to get ourselves out of it. Coming up short this early [stinks]. We expect a lot more of this group. It’s just frustrating.”
Toronto scored the next three goals, Pierre Engvall tied the game, 2-2.
“In terms of what [the team records] mean, I don’t know that it means a lot especially knowing where we need to get to as a team when it counts the most,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “But it’s obviously not nothing; I think it speaks to the work that this team has done and speaks to what this team is capable of. And it also just speaks to the fact that we just need to remain focused on the fact that we are a really good team and can do really good things.”
Nylander scored the go ahead goal, and David Kampf added an empty-net strike for the 4-2 final.
Ilya Sorokin made 33 saves in the New York loss.
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