What looked like a game on cruise control ended up with a wild finish and a sigh of relief for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who held on for a 4-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.
After taking a 3-0 lead on first-period on goals by Matthew Knies, William Nylander and Bobby McMann, and going up 4-1 just 18 seconds into the third period on a goal by Mitch Marner, the game looked to be in the bag for the Leafs, who came into the game with a 20-0-0 record when leading after 40 minutes.
However, Edmonton mounted a comeback and even looked to have tied the game with 2:04 remaining in the third period and the goalie pulled as Connor McDavid sent a pass across to Leon Draisaitl and he picked the top corner with a one-timer. However, it turned out that Oilers newcomer John Klingberg was offside on the play after a coach’s challenge.
“We couldn’t get quite the angle we wanted so I called a timeout to give them more time and they made a great call,” said Toronto head coach Craig Berube of the successful challenge.
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The Oilers poured it on to the wire and came close on multiple occasions, but Toronto goaltender Joseph Woll came up huge and was able to make a sprawling glove save on Oiler Corey Perry in the dying seconds to preserve the win.
“It was just mayhem, guys diving everywhere, trying to get in lanes, trying to block shots, trying to do the best we can to keep the puck out of the net,” said Marner, who recorded two points to become the fastest Toronto player to reach 70 points in a season (52 games) since Doug Gilmour and Dave Andreychuk in 1993-94.
Perry wished he hadn’t been so close to the final buzzer on the play.
“I knew there wasn’t any time left. I think it hit his glove and the buzzer went,” said Perry, who scored his 10th of the season with 8:27 to play in the third period to pull the Oilers to within one. “I didn’t have much time to get it off. If I had an extra second, I probably would’ve stepped around him and took one more step and shot it, but I didn’t have that time.”
Woll was key to the victory, making 45 saves on the night.
“They’re a good team obviously and they made a good push, and I was just doing everything in my power to keep the puck out of the net,” Woll said. “It was a good win for us, a big win.”
Toronto snapped a three-game losing skid with the victory, but Berube wasn’t pleased that the Leafs took their feet off the gas pedal.
“We did a lot of good things, but I think we could have been more aggressive with the lead,” he said. “I’m not critiquing the win, because a win’s a win, but I think we could have pushed a little bit more on them. Woll was great, guys battled, it was a battle, playoff-type game, lot of credit to their team, they’ve very good.”
Toronto was buoyed by the returns of Knies and John Tavares from injury, but saw defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson leave the contest with a lower-body injury.
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