Leafs Postgame: Leafs Season Officially Over as Sens win 5-3

Fire Dubas. Trade Gardiner. Buyout Tavares. Nylander was invisible, trade him for Erik Gudbranson.

Wait, you mean to tell me that single game samples can be fluky, and sometimes good teams can lose to bad teams solely on luck?

Oh, in that case, calm down, it’s only game 2 of 82.

Unlike Wednesday, the Leafs had a solid start to the game, as they basically were hemming the Sens in for the early part of the game. But, the Leafs took a penalty that led to a swift momentum change for the Sens, resulting in a 1-0 goal from Dylan DeMelo (his first as a Sen, of course it’s against the Leafs). The Leafs managed to control play for the rest of the period, but alas, no goal.

You may have missed the Leafs tie the game real early in the second, as the boring first period and all that turkey in you probably made you fall asleep. But, the Leafs did in fact tie the game, and it was an excellent play from Marner, skating around Mikkel Boedker and giving a great feed to Morgan Rielly, who scored his first goal of the year.

Then the Sens scored two more goals, but who cares.

When it seemed like the Leafs would head into the third trailing, Mitch Marner took the game into his own hands, and went end to end on the power play late in the third to tie the game at 3-3.

The Leafs had some momentum going into the third period, aaaaaaaand Chabot just juked out Ozhiganov and scored to make it 4-3. It wasn’t a pretty one, and Andersen probably should’ve had that (and every other goal he allowed tonight).

The Leafs basically had the puck magnetized to their sticks after, and dominated the play for the rest of the game, and despite plenty of chances, they just couldn’t capitalize on any. Mark Stone got the empty netter for Ottawa, and they walked away with a 5-3 win.

Well, we weren’t going to win them all. Of course, it came against Ottawa, who I swear has voodoo magic that allows them to score bad goals against the Leafs, but it happens.

via NaturalStatTrick.com

As you can see here, the Leafs basically ran away with the Corsis, a significant improvement from Wednesday night. They dominated in Corsi, Fenwick, shots, scoring chances, high danger Corsi, everything but goals.

Freddy had a bad night, and every goal also saw somebody slip up or miss an assignment, but aside from those few errors, the Leafs played well. It just didn’t end up on the score board tonight, and sometimes that happens.

At least they play tomorrow, so we don’t have to hear people drag on about this loss for half a week, even though it can simply be chalked down to bad luck. So, we’ll be back tomorrow when the Leafs head to Chicago, with Garret Sparks making his season debut in his hometown, and hopefully we see a few other adjustments to the lineup on a back-to-back.