Holl The Hero

 

                                                           

Last night Toronto would be coming out of their second four-day break and they would travel to Kanata for a Thursday night matchup against the Ottawa Senators. In the days leading up to last nights game there were some potential trade options in goal because it was announced that starter Freddie Andersen would miss the next 7-10 days. I wrote an article giving my thoughts on the three potential goalie options I will be posting tomorrow morning.

Jack Campbell would once again be named starter for the visiting Maple Leafs who was coming off a strong performance in goal where he shutout the Calgary Flames and Ottawa who were on game two of a back-to-back would have Anton Forsberg in goal who the Sens had recently claimed off the Waiver Wire. For Ottawa this would be their fifth starting goalie this season.

The game would start with Toronto starting the game at a quick pace spending time in the offensive end of the ice allowing their speed and skill to generate scoring chances and opportunities on the man advantage. The powerplay struggles for the Leafs would continue as in the opening frame they would fail to score on all three Ottawa penalties. Even with the team unable to score on their special team chances Toronto would continue to press for the important first goal. As Thomas Chabot for Ottawa would be serving his second minor for slashing after interrupting an Auston Matthews scoring chance The Leafs looked poised to light the lamp first, but Ottawa had other plans. The senators would dump the puck into the Toronto end Jack Campbell would go out to play the puck, but he would unfortunately turn the puck over to former Leaf Connor Brown would have a wide-open goal to score on to give the pesky Senators the 1-0 lead, a lead they would have after the opening 20 minutes of play.

With Toronto trailing after the first period, they would continue to apply pressure searching for the tying goal they would see chance after chance by the likes of Tavares, Hyman, and Auston Matthews be turned aside. Late in period two Toronto would manage to solve Anton Forsberg as Zach Hyman would feed a pass to TJ Brodie who had jumped into the rush, his deflection would go off the post only to bounce off the shoulder of Ilya Mkheyev and into the goal. This goal would be waived off at first, but the officials would review the play and award the goal to the Leafs giving Mkheyev credit for his 5^th goal of the season. The second period would end with the teams deadlocked at a goal a piece.

With 20 minutes remaining both teams would look to break the tie but both Jack Campbell and Anton Forsberg would continue to shut the door early on. Midway through the period though after losing a draw in the Ottawa zone Alex Kerfoot would manage to keep the puck in the offensive zone and then set up long time Ottawa Senator Jason Spezza for a rocket of a one time shot into the Ottawa goal for his 8^th of the year to make it 2-1 for the Leafs for their first lead of the contest. There would be a little bit of controversy just before this goal as Toronto’s Wayne Simmonds would take the puck behind the Ottawa goal only to have his feet taken out from him in direct site of the official with no arm going up for the obvious tripping penalty. Toronto’s lead would be short lived though as Ottawa would send the puck into the Leafs end Jack Campbell would come out to play the puck and for the second time, he would turn the puck over leading to Ottawa scoring their second goal thanks to Barrie Ontario’s Alex Formenton who picked up his first goal of the season. The closing minutes of the third period would run out and the score would remain tied at 2-2 meaning we would need five more minutes to determine which team would win the bonus point.

Now the teams would line up three on three to play some bonus hockey and we would see the usual excitement that comes along with these extra five minutes and both teams would trade high quality opportunities only to see each goalie continuing to play extremely well. Ottawa thought they had the game won when it looked as if a three on none breakaway was developing but thankfully for Leaf fans Auston Matthews would break up the play and after hitting the side of the goal Mitch Marner would send the lose puck over to Justin Holl who would fire the puck home to give Toronto the hard fought win.

 

Toronto will now head into a busy stretch that will see the Leafs play 6 games in the next 10 days and they start by meeting Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers Saturday night who themselves have been off for the last little while after having their three-game series against Montreal postponed due to Montreal having two players dealing with Covid.