The sweep of the NHL from Monday night starts in Toronto where Garret Sparks made 24 saves to become the first Leafs goalie in franchise history to pitch a shutout in his NHL-debut over the Edmonton Oilers.
“It all went according to plan,” Sparks joked.
“After I came out of the first period unscathed, I wanted to have a good second and I 
got a couple of lucky posts there,” he added. “Going into the third period, it was definitely on my mind, and I just wanted to be sure that if they are going to beat me, they really had to beat me. The guys in front of me kept everything to the outside and kept everything manageable. I really have them to thank for this.”
With James Reimer sidelined with a lower-body injury and Jonathan Bernier winless (0-81) this season the Leafs called up Sparks from Syracuse in the American league.
“Life’s about opportunity and how you respond to that opportunity, and obviously he must have some swagger about him, some confidence about him, because he was solid,” Toronto coach Mike Babcock said of Sparks. “He made some good saves. He was 6-foot-3 on every shot, which is a good thing for a goalie. He played well. We got a win.”
Leo Komarov scored twice and Nazem Kadri added a goal.
The Oilers reverted to their soft ways and were hardly involved in the team defense yet again.
“I didn’t think we were a very hard team,” Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. “I didn’t think we stood over a lot of pucks; we didn’t win a lot of battles along the boards. I didn’t think we were competitive enough in a lot of areas to come up with the victory. I thought the [Maple Leafs were] physically stronger than we were in a number of areas. Their power play and penalty kill was better than ours, and when that happens, you are usually on the losing end.”
Anders Nilsson stopped 23 shots and was left on an island by his defense as are most goalies in the Oilers’ game plan.
“We had some posts, some chances,” Edmonton’s Taylor Hall said. “It’s not like they had a ton of chances even-strength either. Bit of a chess match, but at the end of the day, they got a couple goals past our goalie and we didn’t find a way to make it hard on [Sparks].”
In Brooklyn, the Islanders escaped the Colorado Avalanche in a 5-3 win. The game was back and forth most of the night until the Isles’ Cal Clutterbuck scored early in the third to get some distance between the teams.
The line of Casey Cizikas, Clutterbuck and Matt Martin was determined to get the winner after giving up a quick goal to Jarome Iginla in the second.
“We broke through,” Clutterbuck said. “It was a game where two bad bounces could have ended up letting one get away from us, but I thought we did a good job of not letting that happen.”
Semyon Varlamov took the loss on 23 saves and has not been as solid as hoped by the Avs.
“It’s not easy for him. Obviously we need that extra save and we didn’t get it,” Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said. “It’s hard to win if you’re giving up four goals on the road. … He’s our number one guy.”
The Isles fourth line was the driving force in the win and appreciated by their head coach.
“They just work, they do the right things,” Capuano said. “When you work hard, you get rewarded in life and the way that they are playing right now, they deserve to get rewarded.”
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