In Elmont, the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the New York Islanders, 3-1, on Saturday.
Morgan Rielly scored in the middle frame to give the Leafs the 3-1 lead, and a little breathing room.
“If you look at his stats and what he brings to our team, to not be at least a one-time All-Star, it’s insanity, to be fairly honest,” Toronto’s Mitchell Marner said of Rielly. “It’s crazy, but the thing about Morgan, and the thing we all love about him, is he’s the same guy through it all. He’s a lot of fun to be around, he’s a great person to have around our team with families or anyone. We’re very fortunate to have him and he knows how much we love him in that locker room and on the ice. He does a lot of great things for us, but hopefully, he gets what he deserves here soon within the coming years.”
Petr Mrazek made 27 saves in the Maple Leafs win.
“I liked a lot of what we did, what our whole lineup did,” Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Each line, I thought, gave us good shifts, gave us good efforts. I loved our second period. We took the 3-1 lead, and I thought we were really good and in full control of the second half of that second period. That was really good.
“The third period wasn’t perfect in terms of controlling the play. I’d like to spend more time on their half of the ice like we did in the second, but I thought it was progress and I thought we defended really well. We didn’t give any clean looks really at our net at all, and Petr was strong with anything they threw at him.”
Toronto improved to 25-10-3.
Zach Parise was the lone striker for the Isles.
“We knew the importance of the game, and two out of the three periods we played well,” Parise said. “It’s a really good hockey team over there that we didn’t give a whole lot to, but on the flip side, there’s some areas we could have probably been a little better.”
New York fell to 14-14-6.
Parise’s goal tied the 1-1 in the first period. The Leafs replied with a goal from Pierre Engvall with 0.4 seconds left on the clock in the frame.
“That one took some steam out of us,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “We battled through our power-play miscue and turnover, and Zach came back and got us back into the game. I was really liking our first period right until the last second, basically. I thought we gave them two freebies tonight in the first period.”
Marner scored a shorthanded goal in the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Maple Leafs.
“To go into the third with a two-goal lead and just kind of play well enough to hang on to it is good,” Rielly said. “That’s what we want to do every night. Obviously, it hasn’t been going that way as of late, but by no means was there panic within the dressing room about that trend. So, tonight was a good example of playing well. I thought Petr played really well, and a huge two points for us.”
Semyon Varlamov made 20 saves in the Isles loss.
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