But I think we would like to maybe generate a little bit more offence and a little more zone time and some more dangerous high-end chances than we did.” “We gave up a breakaway, some odd-man rushes and he came up big. “He made some great saves for us, kept us in the game,” Matthews said of Samsonov. The teams traded the game’s only goals in the first period as goalies Ilya Samsonov and Alexander Georgiev came up with ooh-and-ahh-inducing aves, none bigger than Samsonov stopping a Valeri Nichushkin short-handed breakaway in the second period, and an Evan Rodrigues one-timer in the third.
They pushed, we didn't crack … They checked extremely hard, showing you what a Stanley Cup-winning team does in terms of the defending and checking.” They carried play a little bit more than we did, especially to the first two periods. “Two teams played hard,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. Nathan MacKinnon gave Colorado the extra point, as the Leafs lost two games in a row for the first time since Jan. So the point that came with getting to a shootout helped both teams. The Leafs and Avalanche can freewheel with the best of them, but this game got tight in a hurry, with both teams feeling the pressure of a playoff race: Toronto is trying to hold on to second place in the Atlantic Division while the Avalanche could drop into a wild-card spot in the Western Conference at any given moment. So ultimately it comes down to a shootout and they got the better of it.” They're skilled and they got their chances and we got ours. “Both teams obviously played well defensively. “That was a good game,” said goal scorer Morgan Rielly. “Just two good teams, fast teams and not a whole lot of high-event stuff going on,” Leafs centre Auston Matthews said.Īnd although they have lost two in a row for the first time since mid-January, the Leafs insist there's nothing to see here. It’s not often a team comes out feeling good about a loss.īut when it's a 2-1 shootout loss against the Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, a game in which the skating was fast and the passing was terrific but dangerous scoring chances were low, the Maple Leafs felt they did all that they could until the game got to the coin-flip part of the evening.
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