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First Period

Leafs face Frederik Andersen with most of their regular roster back.

Bobby McMann goes for the early goal, but it's Brady Skjei who actually manages it.

1-0 Carolina

The broadcast tried to sugar coat it, but that is a bone stupid move from TJ Brodie.

Ilya Lyubushkin gets to defend a two-on-one, and does fine. Morgan Rielly comes in at the end.

Jake McCabe gets hit into the boards, and the scrum doesn't result in a Leafs player joining the Carolina player in the box. Power play time.

Leafs lose possession and Liljegren does a thing he does often. He steps in and wails on the puck. And the inevitable result is that it bounces hard off of something and comes right back out to the defenders.

Naturally the Leafs immediately take a penalty and then give the Hurricanes a long six-on-five. Naturally it's a holding call.

Joel Edmundson puts his glove down on a puck in the crease, so the Hurricanes get a penalty shot.

Woll with the stop!

The puck gets through Woll and bounces off the post and Edmundson just teleports over there to make sure that puck stays out. I like this guy. He has no off switch.

Nick Robertson turns the puck over, and Pontus Holmberg ends up taking a slashing call defending the rush against.

A pass bounces of McCabe's skate and in. Remember when that was always Justin Holl's or Nikita Zaitsev's fault if it happened to them? Good times.

2-0 Hurricanes

Brent Burns takes a holding call with less than a minute left. This is almost exactly what the Leafs would do in a situation like that. Nice to see someone else suffer.

John Tavares gets his stick slashed and the ref blows the whistle for fun. No penalty call.

Thoughts

Leafs can't win this game if they take a penalty every time they're pressed to defend.

Hurricanes won the special teams battle, and therefore the period.

Second Period

The rest of the power play brings no joy.

Max Domi and Auston Matthews get a two-on-one, and does Domi pass it? Yes. Does it work? No.

Matthews with a loose puck and can't put it past Andersen. Ditto a few seconds later.

Nylander with a rush chance, and as we learned last time against this team, that's their weakness. The Leafs need to be jumping on the puck and just skating.

Robertson does a dumb thing by swinging at a puck falling, and he hits a Hurricanes player. Yet another Carolina power play.

Hurricanes own the zone on their power play, but they miss the net five straight times. Woll saves the sixth.

A symptom of the Leafs' problems: Liljegren bumps his man off the puck pretty much perfectly, and then he and Rielly both sloooooowly close on the loose puck and of course arrive behind the Carolina player. Yet another 50/50 puck battle won convincingly and no possession results.

Wow, Andrei Svechnikov does a dumb thing – offensive zone penalty against the Leafs depth. Another power play with only a few seconds left.

And the current PP1 does what it does. Some good some bad, and Andersen has the good taken care of.

Thoughts

Leafs definitely had some excellent chances in that period. None of them went in. That's pretty much the full story.

Third Period

The power play continues, but the real action is a Carolina shorthanded attempt. Woll is hold the door closed so far.

This game doesn't feel like a goalie duel because of the score, but it is a goalie duel.

Carolina putting the Leafs through the spin cycle here, and Woll is not going to stop everything if this keeps on.

NROB! Yes.

2-1 Carolina

Announcer voice: the role of Mitch Marner is being played by Auston Matthews.

Matthews is also taking care of his own job too, he's been the offence in this game.

Nylander gets taken down on a good scoring chance, and the Leafs have a power play with three minutes left.

They try pulling Woll, but they only get a few seconds before a whistle. Leafs take a timeout, and we'll see if it's six-on-four or five-on-four. The Leafs take the risk, pull Woll, and Carolina banks it off the post. Leafs still alive here.

Forty seconds left, and the Leafs can't quite find a way to get one past Andersen. Great effort in the third.

Thoughts

Carolina had no weaknesses tonight. But the Leafs sure did try.

Next game is Tuesday at home to the Devils.

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