In Columbus, Ilya Samsonov made 30 saves for the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 3-0 shutout of the Blue Jackets on Friday./
The Maple Leafs improved to 32-13-8.
For Samsonov, it was his third shutout of the season.
“I felt great today,” Samsonov said. “I thank my teammates. I never seen a better game than we had today, how many shots were blocked, how we played on the PK. We spent a lot of time in the offensive zone. This shutout is not about me. It’s more about the team.”
The Maple Leafs improved to 32-13-3.
John Tavares scored his first of two on the night with 5:45 gone on the fist period to give the Maple Leafs a 1-0 lead.
“We did some good things, got involved. I think after the first period we controlled the neutral zone,” Tavares said. “[Samsonov] was great in goal tonight. All four lines made contributions and our ‘D’ was solid helping bring pucks out.”
Columbus dropped to 15-33-4.
“That’s a pretty good hockey team there,” Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said of Toronto. “They’ve got six really good ‘D.’ They’re where they’re at for a reason. This group has been growing together for a while, especially that core. They’ve been building and that’s been a focus for them for their top guys.”
Samsonov held that lead until the third period when Pierre Engvall scored at 7:49 to push the Toronto advantage to 2-0.
“We’ve got to find a way to create some more offense and put a few in the back of a net,” Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner said.
“We didn’t cheat for offense, especially when we got the lead,” Toronto’s Mitchell Marner said. “I thought we played the same way throughout the game and got rewarded for it at the end. If we can play that way for 60 minutes, we’re a hard team to beat.”
Just 49 seconds later, Tavares hit for his double and the 3-0 final.
“We didn’t make it on the number of chances that we had to extend our lead, but within that I thought we played a pretty solid and patient game,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We didn’t give up a lot and extended our lead in the third period, which is what you want to do.”
Columbus is 1-3-2 in their last six matches.
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Joonas Korpisalo made 38 saves in the Blue Jackets loss.
“You saw the game, [Korpisalo] was excellent,” Larsen said.
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