St. Louis Blues left wing Alexander Steen scores against Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen during third-period NHL hockey action in Toronto on Tuesday, January 16, 2018.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Call it one of those yeah-but games.
Yeah, the Toronto Maple Leafs blew a one-goal lead in the final minute of the third period and lost 2-1 in overtime Tuesday night to the St. Louis Blues, the third time in a row they lost a game they should have won. But it was one of those wonky games where the Leafs played even or better with one of the NHL's top teams, made two mistakes and paid dearly for both of them.
The wonky part, and where the dispensation comes in, was that both the Leafs and the Blues were coming off the five-day break negotiated into the annual schedule by the NHL Players' Association. Yeah, this meant the game was hardly a work of art, but in keeping the Blues off the scoresheet for 59 minutes and three seconds the Leafs did show they are getting a grasp on the defensive hockey head coach Mike Babcock wants them to play by playoff time.
Still, there were those two mistakes.
The first came with 57 seconds left in the third period with the Leafs trying to nurse that 1-0 lead and the Blues playing with six skaters after pulling goaltender Carter Hutton. Defenceman Ron Hainsey didn't quite tie up Blues forward Alexander Steen in front of the net and he got his stick loose to put in a rebound, tie the score and force overtime.
The second miscue was made by Leafs forward Mitch Marner when he let up near the St. Louis blue line as defenceman Vince Dunn was carrying the puck out of the defensive zone. Marner was not expecting Dunn to carry the puck, not with the explosive Vladimir Tarasenko on the ice but this allowed the defenceman to start a two-on-one rush and he scored at 1:43 of overtime to give the Blues the win.
"I was just trying to take away a reverse [pass] to Tarasenko, and kind of slowed up, kind of read it wrong and they got an odd-man rush," Marner said. "Obviously it's not good and we're not happy with it but we played a tight game. It was just unfortunate bounces."
Seconds before Dunn scored, the Leafs had the best scoring chance in overtime but Hutton stopped William Nylander on a breakaway.
Babcock was in a yeah-but frame of mind as well after the game. He liked the way his team played defensively for the most part but there were those two mistakes and a few other things.
"St. Louis in general has a big, good defence. They've got a heck of a hockey team," the coach said. "There wasn't a lot of room. Both teams played hard. I thought it was a real high-level game, probably the highest level we've been in in a while.
"You look at these [last three] games, we've had a breakaway in each one of those games and we found a way to lose. Any way you look at it, we made two mistakes at the end of the game and it cost us two goals."
Aside from Nylander's attempt in overtime, the Leafs' breakaway in this game produced their only goal, a shorthanded one from Connor Brown. His heady play broke the scoring deadlock midway through the third period. First he got his stick on a saucer pass intended for Blues defenceman Alex Pietrangelo at the point. This started the puck bouncing and it skipped through Pietrangelo.
Brown got a step on Pietrangelo in the race for the puck and was rewarded with a breakaway after the Blues defenceman unsuccessfully dove for the puck. Then he roofed a shot on Hutton for his 11th goal of the season.
Also wasted aside from the two points was another superb effort by Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen, who showed no rustiness from the break. He faced 42 shots.
"Sometimes it goes that way," Andersen said. "You want to keep moving forward. You're going to go through stretches like this. We were good in close games earlier in the year and we've got to get back to that."
While the game was more or less what could be expected with both teams coming off their five-day breaks, it was not an overly sloppy affair. The lack of scoring – the teams went into the third period tied 0-0 – indicated the rustiness of the shooters but there were some interesting moments.
A lot of the interest was provided by Leafs rookie defenceman Travis Dermott, who once again played well in his third NHL game since being promoted from the Toronto Marlies farm team on Jan. 6. He moved the puck crisply out of the Leafs zone, making that hard, accurate first pass on several occasions.
The only hiccup for the 21-year-old came midway through the second period when he batted a clearing attempt right to a Blues forward. But Andersen bailed out Dermott with a nice glove save.
It was no coincidence that Dermott and another recent call-up for the Leafs, centre Frederik Gauthier, were two of the sharper players on the ice. Both were sent back to the Marlies for the five-day break and both played in two games last weekend.
Gauthier had six hits as the Leafs' fourth line did a reasonably good job with its limited ice-time.
Dermott's smooth transition from the American Hockey League to the NHL raises the question of what happens to the three-man rotation Babcock committed himself to after the rookie was called up. Connor Carrick, who played with Jake Gardiner against the Blues, and Andreas Borgman, who sat in the press box, are the others in the rotation.
But Babcock did not tip his hand during the Blues game. Despite his play, Dermott's ice-time decreased as the game went on. It went from 4:01 in the first period to 3:48 in the second to 3:12 in the third for a total of 11 minutes, the least among the Leafs' six defencemen.