The Toronto Maple Leafs
pulled off a comeback against all odds to take down the red-hot Washington Capitals 4-3 in overtime on the road. Despite the Capitals looking like the better team for the first 40 minutes, the Leafs played some excellent shutdown defence out of the gate in the third period and scored two goals to push the game to overtime, despite two goals being disallowed. And if you ask head coach Berube, both goals could have counted, even if it didn’t end up mattering in the end.
The goals themselves could have gone either way. Lorentz’s was an odd deflection from driving the net that went off of his leg and in, eventually called back after the Capitals challenged for a kicking motion. The Maple Leafs didn’t let it get to them, as Berube alluded to, and didn’t waste much time getting on the board for real thanks to what could have been a highlight reel goal for Matthew Knies setting up an easy finish for William Nylander.
It was less than two minutes later when Morgan Rielly fired a point shot and Knies made an early push for hero of the game, tipping the puck past Capitals goaltender Logan Thompson to tie the game up at three. Sike! It was called no-goal due to a tip above the crossbar and despite a well-intentioned challenge from Berube and the Maple Leafs’ staff, it remained no-goal. The broadcast pointed out that the tip came below the bar despite most of the stick being above the bar, but again, it was ultimately too close of a call to overturn the initial call.
From there came an emotional final few minutes that saw the Capitals come as close as you can get to icing the game on an empty netter before Knies stripped the Capitals of the puck and took it back the other way before drawing a penalty. From there, Mitch Marner unloaded on a rare one-timer goal to officially tie the game at 3 before John Tavares eventually won the game in overtime.
The Maple Leafs are now 4-1-0 without Auston Matthews in the lineup, putting together a string of good efforts with the exception of Tuesday night’s shutout loss to the Ottawa Senators and will be in action on Saturday to host the Edmonton Oilers.
