First Period
Leafs open with some offensive pressure, but they can't get anything really interesting going. On the plus side nothing interesting happens defensively either.
Ryan Reaves jumps on a loose puck and gets an adorable little breakaway.
Ilya Samsonov makes his first meaningful save after a little bit of Leaf-esque play in their own zone.
Vegas is blocking bodies, blocking shots and just generally letting the air out of the Leafs' tires. They don't have anything much going on for themselves, though.
Two good-looking offensive plays by the Leafs ended in Simon Benoit shooting. It's not by design, but it is very unlikely to get goals.
Vegas gets a power play with less than two minutes left when Bobby McMann takes Nick Hague down with him.
Leafs open with a shorty chance, but no joy.
Matthews puts it in Adin Hill's glove as the horn goes – no score in this one.
Thoughts
Not much going on yet, but the Leafs look better than Vegas.
Second Period
Max Domi gets the puck on an iffy pass and has to double clutch with the shot, even though Hill is down and... oh....
Controversy!
Adin Hill loses his skate blade, and they blow it dead. No reason to do that I can see unless you do it for everyone.
Leafs with a nice series of three on - whoever to get some passing plays in tight.
Hill is up for it.
Toronto takes another penalty as TJ Brodie goes off for holding.
This is not a good power play – too many rearranged players for Vegas, no one knows who's doing what.
Vegas with some pressure and Samsonov counters with a couple of nice saves.
Domi with a shot and Vegas picks up the rebound on the save to send Ivan Barbashev on a break.
1-0 Vegas
No one saw him make a run for it.
Benoit with another scoring chance.
Mitch Marner with a couple of episodes of "what do I do with this puck?"
Uh-oh.
Vegas gets a tip on a great shot from Shea Theodore
2-0 Vegas
No one on the tip artist Mason Morelli. These Vegas jerseys are so hard to see, I guess.
Toronto gets a puck over glass penalty to see if they can sink this game to the bottom of Lake Ontario. McMann again. How do you like him now?
Marner dominating from the PK, where he does indeed know what to do with the puck. Theodore ruined the fun.
Vegas finally takes a penalty with five seconds left in their power play. Wow, just wow. He took a penalty for knocking down a guy in front of the crease. On the power play!
Leafs look good, but again, no goals for them.
Tavares moving back up the lineup for some shifts.
LOL. Bertuzzi with a wicked shot right off the faceoff.
2-1 Vegas
No I'm not going to stop finding it hilarious that the guy who was for sure bad is scoring goals again.
Booooo. Vegas get it right back in the last minute.
3-1 Vegas
Tavares is big mad at that bit of business. Which he should be.
Thoughts
They talked about Tavares on the broadcast and how he seems to be in some pain, and I think a lot of you missed something about his recent games. He missed a game due to illness, came back and looked very not ready. He missed another game, and that was not illness related but many people assumed it was. The team never said what the injury is, although is seems like everyone knows. So he's not playing at anything like 100%.
Leafs are dead even in expected goals (Moneypuck) in all-situations, and Vegas hasn't done anything too stupid on defence. The Leafs on the other hand... are the Leafs. It doesn't help that the biggest chunk of xG is from David Kämpf.
Third Period
Morgan Rielly has to give it some gas to poke check Amadio on a break.
Long Leafs offensive shift ends with two defender shots. It's like the worst possible outcome always ends up being the only shooting option tonight.
Vegas gets another on a flurry of activity. And that's pretty much the end of all Leafs hopes of a comeback.
4-1 Vegas
Holy cow, that was beautiful. Reaves when he just plays hockey (and Pontus Holmberg does the work) can score.
4-2 Vegas
I'm sorry, Bobby, but you're below Holmberg again on my depth chart.
Mitch Marner takes a penalty and Keefe is doing red face.
Ya know. That's bullshit. You can't knock me down that easy.
Even when Vegas has their whole team on the ice their PP is kind of bad. It's really odd when good teams don't fix that.
Keefe gets a misconduct for the calm part of his complaining to the ref about that "cheap card table" trip.
This is not what got him the gate:
This is:
To cap this game off Marner makes a save with Samsonov pulled, but eventually Vegas makes it 5-2.
Oh for... Vegas scores again to make it 6-2. Poor Sammy. I refuse to show the last two goals.
Thoughts
Next game is Thursday against Arizona.
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