The Toronto Maple Leafs carry a three-game losing streak into Saturday night’s road showdown with the Edmonton Oilers.
Toronto has struggled to create offense during its current slide, tallying just a single goal in each of the three contests.
“I think when you’re not scoring and things aren’t going in, you take a little extra second to shoot and try to get a little bit too cute,” Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said after their 3-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday. “I’m not saying we got cute tonight, but just not quick enough on and off shooting.”
Despite their coach’s comments, the Maple Leafs did outshoot the Wild 33-25 in the loss.
Berube went on to say, “But we had chances. It’s a tough stretch right now with scoring, that’s the bottom line, so just gotta battle through it.”
The Maple Leafs have outshot their opponents in each of the three consecutive losses.
Superstar Auston Matthews has now been held off the scoresheet in two straight games after tallying goals in five consecutive contests. He was held pointless in just one of the previous 14 outings (11 goals, eight assists).
The Oilers head into Saturday’s clash with points in four straight games, but fell to the Detroit Red Wings 3-2 in a shootout on Thursday.
Edmonton got a bit unlucky against Detroit and ran into a hot goaltender. Alex Lyon controlled the game from the Red Wings’ crease, stopping 45 of Edmonton’s 47 shots on net.
The Oilers jumped out to an early 2-0 first-period lead, but were unable to solve Lyon for the remaining two periods and overtime.
Jeff Skinner, who scored the Oilers’ second goal of the game, felt like his team had plenty of opportunities to grab another goal before the Red Wings came storming back.
“We had some looks, we could have had another one, maybe,” Skinner said. “It would have been nice to have another one while we had the lead. And even when we were tied, we still had some looks. Just one of those games where we would have liked to get the next one and they won in a shootout.”
Leon Draisaitl scored the Oilers’ opening goal on the power play to bring his league-leading tally up to 36.
Draisaitl’s running mate, Connor McDavid, assisted on that goal and carries a six-game point streak (five goals, four assists) into the matchup with his hometown team.
McDavid, who grew up in a suburb of Toronto, has suited up against the Maple Leafs 24 times before in his career, and has a total of 12 goals and 25 assists against them.
The Oilers have a 7-2-1 record over their previous 10 games, while not allowing more than three goals at any point over that stretch.
This all-Canadian battle is the final of a six-game homestand for the Oilers, who are 3-1-1 so far, while the Maple Leafs will embark on a four-game Western Conference road swing starting on Saturday.
Toronto has won nine of the past 12 meetings (9-2-1) between these historic franchises.
–Field Level Media
