A lunging Jonas Gustavsson of the Toronto Maple Leafs eyes the puck while stopping the shootout attempt by Montreal Canadians' Scott Gomez during NHL hockey action in Toronto Saturday, March 20, 2010. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren CalabreseDarren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
Jonas Gustavsson kept his own winning streak going Saturday night to break two others - the Montreal Canadiens' and Jaroslav Halak's.
The Canadiens and their goaltender Halak came into the game looking to extend their winning streaks to seven games but were stymied in the shootout by Gustavsson. The Leafs' rookie goaltender stopped two out of three Canadiens shooters to extend his personal winning streak to five games and give the Leafs a 3-2 win, their sixth win in their last seven NHL games.
Gustavsson's winning streak will come in handy soon for his agent, Joe Resnick. The young Swede will be a restricted free agent on July 1 and while he is expected to stay with the Leafs, he could score a better-than-expected raise.
"Of course, I want to sign here, that's one goal," Gustavsson said. "But I don't think about that too much."
As for his five wins in a row, Gustavsson said it was due to his work with Leafs goaltending coach Francois Allaire.
"He wants you to be in position and make yourself big," the goaltender said. "If you're making the highlight save you're out of position. It's a simple system."
Regulation time saw the Leafs' top line of centre Tyler Bozak and wingers Phil Kessel and Nikolai Kulemin duke it out with the Canadiens' line of centre Scott Gomez, Brian Gionta and Benoit Pouliot in the scoring department. Those two lines handled all the scoring with two goals each.
The game lacked the usual Canadiens-Leafs electricity, although it remained fairly entertaining because it was close. Then again, it had its moments, usually due to the work of Halak.
The 24-year-old goaltender robbed the Leafs on several occasions and could not be faulted for either goal that beat him in the first 40 minutes.
The excitement factor increased during the third period, though, as the Habs tied the score 2-2 late in the period. Both teams pressed hard to avoid overtime but neither team was able to manufacture a good scoring chance.
Overtime was pretty much the same story - a lot of skating but not a lot of shooting, although Halak and Gustavsson each had to make a good save in the final minute.
While the Canadiens are bound for the playoffs thanks to their recent work, the Leafs' goals are a little different. The youngsters left on the team after Leafs' general manager shook up the roster in early February are trying to put together some chemistry and audition for jobs next season.
Their fans just want them to keep winning so that first-round draft pick the Boston Bruins have as part of the trade for Kessel gets out of the top five by the end of the season.
"We're a confident group," said forward John Mitchell, who scored the decisive goal in the shootout. "We're young. We're having a lot of fun right now. We're just going to ride this as long as we can. It's great for our team, especially the young guys."
The win was the fifth consecutive for the Leafs in overtime and shootouts. They have won twice in the overtime session and three shootouts. Previous to that, the Leafs were had one win in their previous 13 overtime sessions. "Too bad we couldn't get them earlier," Mitchell said.
Halak went into the shootout having allowed just one goal in his last 16 shootout appearances. While Mitchell fooled him badly on the winner, Halak almost made the save on Kulemin, who scored the other Leaf shootout goal.
"I almost got it but almost doesn't count," Halak said.
Bozak was the first to score on Halak, scoring his seventh goal of the season on a first-period power play. Halak made at least two saves before Bozak scored, slapping in a rebound with the goaltender down.
The Canadiens came back to tie the score 1-1 with 33.2 seconds left in the first period on a great bit of hustle by Brian Gionta. The Canadiens winger took off up the left side and was at full speed when centre Scott Gomez fired a long pass from the right side to the left boards near centre ice. Pouliot made a heads-up play to redirect the puck to Gionta, who was in full flight. Gionta sailed in and beat Gustavsson with a backhand shot the Leafs goaltender should have stopped.
One of the elite skills Kessel has is the ability to fire the puck hard and accurately in full stride on the rush. This is something a lot of NHL veterans never quite master, so to see a 22-year-old snap off lasers on one foot is rather impressive.
Kessel did it again in the second period, finishing a rush with Kulemin by beating Halak with a wrist shot from the top of the right faceoff circle. Bozak and Kulemin both had their second point of the night on the play. Bozak started things by moving the puck up the left side to Kulemin, who carried it to the Montreal zone and then relayed it to Kessel. The Leafs' top scorer never broke his stride and zipped a shot to the top corner with 1:45 left in the second period to give the Leafs a 2-1 lead.
The goal was Kessel's sixth goal in his last six games, while Bozak has eight points in his last six games and Kulemin has 10 in his last eight games.
Gionta and Gomez answered the challenge in the third period with a power-play goal to tie the score 2-2. Gionta scored his second goal of the night when he deflected a feed from Gomez to the low left-hand corner of the net.
The problem for the Habs was that Gionta's goal was their only power-play marker of the night in six opportunities.
"We struggled," Pouliot said. "I think we had a lot of chances beside the net. We should have scored.
"The execution on the power play was still there. It works good but until we get the puck in the net it [won't]be better."
The Canadiens are back in action on Monday night at home against the Ottawa Senators. They hope to have their top goal-scorer, Mike Cammalleri, and defenceman Marc-Andre Bergeron back in the lineup from injuries.