Leafs postgame: Never going outside again

Lock your doors and choose to never go outside again. While the Leafs were previously 2-0 in outdoor games with victories over the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Red Wings, the Leafs were not *quite* as successful in this contest.
Frederik Andersen was pulled after allowing five goals, the lights went out, and the Leafs suffered their seventh three-goal loss of the season as they fell 5-2 to the Washington Capitals.

Not the best effort tonight.

The Leafs won the possession battle, though it’s pretty clear they took off while already down by three. Dive into that what you want.

The Leafs started the game and all anyone could talk about were those dang jerseys. If you caught the game, surely it took at least half of the first period before your eyes adjusted to the all the white on the ice, if at all.

For whatever reason, it seems like the Washington Capitals power play has about a 95% success rate against the Leafs.

On their first opportunity of the game, it would be Evgeny Kuznetov getting his stick on the puck, slotting the puck past Andersen for the first goal of the night.

However, the Leafs wouldn’t have to wait long before tying things up, with Zach Hyman getting his puck on this stick… wait.

Stick on the puck, and it’s 1-1.

And while they held Ovechkin scoreless on the first power play – small victories!, they would concede an even strength goal to him just 59 seconds after Hyman’s goal.

Add in the fact that Nick Backstrom added a power play marker, and it was 3-1 Washington after 20.

Hey, the Leafs scored again!

Except uh, once again they had the same issue. Instead of giving the Capitals 59 seconds to score, they’d allow John Carlson 43 seconds before he restored the Capitals lead at two. For those counting at home, it was now 4-2 Captials

Jakub Vrana would add another for the Capitals just over three minutes later.

We had a rarity in this one, folks. Frederik Andersen was pulled.

We don’t want to talk about it either, but on the positive, at least it’s the first time it’s happened all year from a guy who’s typical spectacular. Blame the ice, we guess.

We’re underway!

Nothing much happened in the first ten minutes, but as is customary in these outdoor games, the teams switched ends and then cut to commercial… and then the lights went out before the puck was dropped.

The game was stopped by about a 20-minute delay due to a power outage, which seems like something that only happens in the NFL and the movies.

But anyway, the game kind of just kept going on and no one really seemed too arsed to finish things out. Even NBC, the NHL’s main American broadcaster gave up with a few minutes to go.

5-2 Final. We’ll see you Monday in Buffalo.