In Toronto, Morgan Rielly scored 3:24 into extra time to give the Maple Leafs a 5-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night.
“It’s the first time playing a game at that tempo,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We just had a pretty emotional comeback win for our first game, so I’m not going to get too nitpicky. We’ll get better every day.”
Nick Suzuki (power pla) and Josh Anderson had scored in the opening frame and gave the Habs a 2-1 lead after the opening frame.
“It was a good game to play in, to watch. Good way to open the year with a win,” Rielly said. “They’re a good team, they came out and played hard, which is what we expected, so we’re happy with the win, obviously. We’ve got a lot of areas to get better, and we’ll talk tomorrow about ways we can improve, but to open with a win, it’s always a good feeling.”
William Nylander scored the first of his goals on the night in the first period when tied the game at 1-1 at 15:56 of the first.
Frederik Andersen made 28 saves for the Maple Leafs to get the win.
The middle frame was highlighted by three power play goals including Tomas Tatar’s breakaway goal in the early minutes to give Montreal a 3-1 lead.
“You never like to lose, but I thought we had started well in the first half of the game and did as good a job you could for the first game,” Montreal coach Claude Julien said. “We had a lead and were in control, but penalties gave them an opportunity to come back in the game.”
Complete game highlights – click here
Nylander and John Tavares (5-on-3) struck for power play markers for Toronto to get the teams level after 40 minutes.
Coming out of the second intermission Anderson scored his second of the game to give the Habs a 4-3 lead after 63 seconds of time had elapsed in the third.
Midway through the third, Jimmy Vesey potted his first with the Leafs to get the teams even and force the extra session.
Carey Price made 29 saves in the loss.
“I think we were the better team. We talked about before the game staying out of the box because that’s where they get momentum, and obviously they did tonight,” Anderson said. “I think anybody watching the game [knows] we were the better team out there, but we’re not going to forget this one. We’ll come out next time and play better.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.