The free-falling Toronto Maple Leafs will hope to reverse their fortunes when they visit the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night.
The Maple Leafs’ road trip got off to a bumpy start on Thursday night with a loss to the Seattle Kraken. Shane Wright quashed any hope of a late comeback, netting his second of the game in the third period to extend Seattle’s lead two-and-a-half minutes after Morgan Rielly had brought the score to within one. Jared McCann added an empty netter to complete the 5-2 rout in what was the Leafs’ sixth consecutive loss.
“Right now, it feels like when we make mistakes, you know, the other team’s capitalizing,” Rielly said after the game. “I mean, that’s why when you look at the score lately, it’s obviously not going our way. We have to limit chances against, goals against, and that starts by kind of limiting mistakes.”
The result threw another wrench into the Leafs’ dwindling playoff hopes, leaving them at the bottom of the Atlantic Division. Goaltender Anthony Stolarz tried to stay optimistic even as he struggled in his second game back from a two-month-long, injury-induced hiatus, allowing four goals on 21 shots.
“I definitely felt a lot better than I did in the first game, I thought my movements were crisper,” Stolarz said. “Obviously, the third one I want back, but for me it’s a step in the right direction and another building block.”
His tandem partner Joseph Woll will almost certainly slot into his place on Saturday night. The Leafs will hope to have their leading points scorer back in the lineup, William Nylander, who has missed the last seven games with a groin injury.
The rebuilding Vancouver Canucks, meanwhile, remain stranded at the bottom of the league even as they interrupted their own three-game losing skid with a 2-0 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday.
Even though he stopped all 32 shots he faced, goaltender Nikita Tolopilo was denied his first official NHL shutout, having left the game for 2:11 of the first period for concussion protocol, during which Kevin Lankinen made a single save.
“The win is more important,” Tolopilo said after the game. “I’m happy that we got the win.”
Vancouver’s lineup has been further encumbered by a wave of injuries sustained over the last three games. In addition to Thatcher Demko and Marco Rossi’s lengthy injuries, the absence of Brock Boeser, Zeev Buium and Nils Hoglander has forced youngsters and depth players all the way up the lineup. 22-year-old winger Liam Ohgren, for one, has been forced into an unfamiliar penalty killing role.
“You know, we can’t keep using the same guys going forward,” head coach Adam Foote said. “We got to teach these young guys how to do it.”
The Canucks have won three of their last four against the Maple Leafs, though Toronto drubbed them 5-0 in their most recent encounter earlier this month. Vancouver has lost 14 of their last 16 games since Dec. 30.
-Field Level Media
