The Maple Leafs haven’t exactly been playing well lately.
So, it’s a testament to how far the team has come in a year — they finished dead last, remember — that they can underperform and still pick up points.
They stole one on Thursday night, in a 2-1 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues.
“They were stronger than us in the first period,” said coach Mike Babcock. “Our team got better. We turned the puck over way too many times. We lost too many battles early. In the end, we did some pretty good things.
“It was a pretty good point.”
Perhaps most remarkable is the lofty spot the Leafs still hold in the standings, raising expectations of a playoff appearance in the air-tight Atlantic Division.
Morgan Rielly scored in regulation for the Maple Leafs, while Frederik Andersen answered a few critics with his best performance since the all-star break. He stopped 38 of 39 shots through three periods.
“It was a good game. I felt good tonight,” said Andersen. “Felt better around the puck.”
But he allowed a goal on the only shot of overtime, by Vladmir Tarasenko just 20 seconds in.
It was a game in which the Maple Leafs couldn’t seem to get anything going until Rielly’s goal late in the second period to tie it. They got their legs under them for the third, but had looked lethargic most of the night.
“We didn’t have the start we wanted, but Freddie kept us in there,” said Rielly. “You want to walk out of here with two (points), but we’ll take the one point and learn from it and get ready for Saturday (against the Buffalo Sabres).”
Don’t blame the schedule.
Both teams were playing for the third time in four nights, and both took Wednesday off. The Leafs should have had the advantage because they were the home team.
“We’re not very pleased with the way we came out,” said Rielly. “Going into the next game, it’s something we definitely want to change.”
The Blues came in hot after back-to-back shutouts to open their five-game road trip, and winners of three of four since the last time the teams met.
There was some concern coming in surrounding Andersen’s play of late. He had a pair of shutouts himself just before the all-star break, but had allowed 19 goals on 114 shots over his last four starts (1-2-1) heading into Thursday night. That’s 5.88 goals-against average and .833 save mark.
“There are times in the year you have little dips, and you’ve just got to make sure you work hard every single day, and those dips are shorter and they don’t happen as often,” Babcock said of his goalie. “That’s the challenge for him. He’s in a situation — I think he played around 42 games last year in the regular season, something like that — (where) we want him to play a lot more. So, the challenge for him is being able to handle that.”
Early on, it looked like it was going to be a rough night for Andersen. Patrik Berglund scored his 14th of the year at 4:15. The Leafs carried the play early — led by an energetic Josh Leivo, starting in place of Nikita Soshnikov (upper-body injury) — but the momentum swung quickly. Berglund’s shot was the Blues’ second of the game.
But Andersen righted his own ship, if the Leafs did not. St. Louis fired 17 shots his way — Toronto managed just four on Jake Allen — in the first period but only emerged with a 1-0 lead to show for it.
The Leafs are among the five worst teams in the NHL when the opposition scores first, now 5-12-6 in that situation with the lowest win total in the league.
“You never want to give up the first one,” said Rielly. “You kind of put yourself behind the 8-ball when you give the momentum. We want to address that.”
They didn’t really play much better in the second period, but did score the only goal. Rielly buried his second of the year after starting a rush, then finishing it off a rebound. It was the first Toronto shot on net after an eight-minute fruitless stretch, and ended the Blues’ shutout streak at 159:14.
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