In Toronto, Mark Giordano made his debut with the Maple Leafs on Wednesday night in a 3-2 win over the New Jersey Devils.
“It felt great. It was a hard-fought game obviously, a tight game,” Giordano said. “We had to stay patient, but obviously our penalty kill was a difference with those two huge goals.
“I felt good all day, I felt excited. I remember coming here when I was a young guy and all the nerves; I had some nerves today, but not really. I felt really excited, and I loved the way we played. It was an aggressive style and it was fun to play.”
The Leafs hit for a pair of shorthanded goals in the win.
Pierre Engvall hit for a shorthanded strike in the third period to snap a 2-2 tie and send them to the 3-2 win.
Petr Mrazek made 20 saves in the Toronto win.
“Two points, it feels good. Always important,” Mrazek said. “I felt really comfortable. I felt I was in the game all game, focusing on the things I can control, and that’s the reason we won.”
The Maple Leafs moved to 40-18-5.
“You talk about his comfort level, my comfort level was high when he was out there,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. ” … You can just tell he’s a veteran, he knows how to play. Despite coming in, new teammates, new city, new system, he was just confident, moved pucks, defended, got in peoples’ way. I really liked his play tonight.”
Nico Hischier and Damon Severson scored for New Jersey.
“We defended well, we knew we were coming off back to back, wanted to play the game the right way and limit the opportunities by their top players,” New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff said. “I thought we had [Auston] Matthews at bay 5-on-5, tried to keep them frustrated. We’ve played this song before this team, I thought we were through this with special teams. We took a step back.
“We’ve been down the path of giving up shorthanded goals at bad times and not taking advantage of power plays to win games. To have a night like tonight is just a painful reminder that if you don’t pay attention to every detail, you can call it stupid, careless, irresponsible, call it whatever you want, but if you are going to win a hockey game and you have a four-minute power play to take advantage of that, we didn’t get it done.”
Toronto’s Ilya Mikheyev scored the Leafs’ first shorthanded goal, his marker tied the game, 1-1.
“It was the game, (the shorthanded goals),” Ruff said. “Our 5-on-5 play, I thought we 
had them frustrated and we limited their top guys, but the couple plays we made 5-on-4 absolutely killed us. Stupid careless mistakes.”
Mitchell Marner had an even strength goal for the Maple Leafs to tie the game, 2-2.
Nico Daws made 28 saves in the New Jersey loss.
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