In Toronto, the Maple Leafs scored three times in regulation off the power play, and still needed the skills competition to down the Anaheim Ducks on We3dnesday, 4-3.
Auston Matthews was credited with the deciding goal in the skills affairs.
“I thought we were really good on special teams and I thought we played pretty well too, creating lots of chances and lots of good opportunities,” Matthews said. “Their goalie played well. All in all, a pretty solid game. Obviously we would liked to have kept it in regulation, but solid work by the group to get the extra point.”
Jack Campbell made 17 saves in the Toronto win.
The Maple Leafs improved to 26-10-3.
“I had no issues with our game today,” Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Obviously there’s things every game that you want to do better but I for the most part liked a lot about our game today. I thought we were in control of the play for most of the game. The only thing we didn’t do was score at 5-on-5. We had a lot of chances and their goaltender was good. Our penalty killing was good when it needed to be, and the power play was outstanding, so lots of good things to take away from the game today.”
Mitchell Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares were the Maple Leafs power play strikers.
“I’ll own that one. We call a timeout, our power play was feeling it so much, I just thought, call a timeout and let those guys [Matthews, John Tavares, William Nylander and Marner] go out for the last whatever was left,” Keefe said. “They were great, had a couple good looks, hit the post and then overdid it at the end. You need to get a line change towards the end there and that’s something our second unit is accustomed to doing. I failed to point that out to our guys to be mindful of that because that group isn’t used to being out there at the end of the power play when it expires.”
The Ducks fell to 21-16-8.
Sam Steel and Jakob Silfverberg scored for the Ducks.
“We’re not in that game, we don’t get to overtime without [Gibson],” Anaheim’s Kevin Shattenkirk said. “I think we came out with a much better effort in the third period to tie the game up and he was able to stand tall in overtime. I just wish we were able to get that extra goal for him.”
Vinni Lettieri made extra time necessary when he scored in the third period to tie the game, 3-3.
“Toronto is a great team with a lot of high skill, but I think we almost gave them a little too much respect tonight early in the game,” Shattenkirk said.
John Gibson made 41 saves in the Anaheim loss.
“We’ve got to thank ‘Gibby’ for that,” Silfverberg said. “He made, I don’t know, how many Grade-A scoring chances he saved for us tonight. Obviously not a good performance by any means for us, but we got a point. We knew we were playing a good team but obviously we can go a lot better than we did tonight. Getting the one point with a chance of two was huge tonight. Not every game of the year is going to be your best, but we know coming in tomorrow [at the Montreal Canadiens], we’ve got to play a lot better.”
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