Oh, lovely, a 10:30 p.m. game and some evil kitten signed me up to recap it. I hope they remember Cathy's rules that the game will not end in overtime (finger curls on the monkey's paw). Here's my real time recap of the game.

The lineup for the night with Joe Woll starting in net for the Leafs.

The Sharks have some ex-Leafs playing tonight, including Timothy Liljegren (it's now pronounced Lil-juh-gren) and Carl Grundstrom. They are starting Alexandar Georgiev in net who is firmly in that "oh, right, that's where he went to" territory when a goalie moves from the east to the west.

First Period

OK Leafs, let's have a repeat performance of the game against the Flyers so I at least go to bed happy and on time.

The game starts out with some kind of odd broadcast issue but someone found the loose connection and tightened it up.

Celebrini gets the first high danger shot of the game on Woll. Then Toffoli gets another one. Woll better be wide awake here as it looks like one of those defence optional games.

And, well, there it is for Toffoli.

Someone get the Leafs playing some defence that can react as quickly as needed and not two seconds behind. It's like they are playing and reacting to the game based on an internet streaming broadcast that's four seconds behind the actual game.

Finally, Tavares and McMann really get something going and the offence heats up. Then the Matthews line comes out and that's the end of that.

But now the Leafs get a power play chance with their current five-forward power play, so we'll see if they can make it up and get something going in this game, and to no one's surprise this season, it's Willy time!

And the Leafs go on the power play again, and the period is about to end, so we can all be safe and secure that's there's no way the Sharks are going to score and retake th.... oh, right, the Leafs...

So the first period ends with the Sharks up 2-1.

It's 11:00 p.m.. Do you know where your defencemen are?

Second Period

Right away the Sharks look energetic and are all over the Leafs and less than two minutes into the period they score again.

Nylander once again is getting the pucks and getting the shots, but Georgiev is a solid wall, however the Leafs get another power play on a tripping call and right away Knies and Matthews find a crack in that wall.

OK it's a one goal game again and the Leafs are back to pushing the Sharks again. That ends when Bobby McMann takes a penalty, though Matthews and Marner get a nice short-handed chance.

The Leafs kill off the penalty despite Shakir Mukhamadullin getting several good chances on Woll.

And there's a terrible chance on Woll, and well, this happens.

And the Leafs get it right back with a goal from the fourth line. Cosmic karma realignment.

But the Leafs are still down by one, and then Will Smith almost makes it down by two but his mom sent him off to his auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.

Now Max Domi is fighting some guy I've never heard of but it looks like his name is Osteoporosis and he probably shouldn't be fighting with that condition.

Domi takes a penalty and a 10-minute Misconduct penalty out of that, but the Leafs kill it off, with Marner setting up another decent short handed chance in the process. The period ends just over half way through the penalty.

It's now Friday here in Toronto! I'm going to spend the intermission with some vodka. At least we have the Oilers to laugh at losing 6-1 to the Kraken at this moment.

Third Period

OK let's go! Third period starting at 12:30 a.m. here in Toronto and the remainder of that Sharks power play is killed off though the Leafs keeping up quite a bit of pressure.

Then Nick Robertson takes a dumb tripping penalty and you can guess what happens next...

And then another Leafs penalty! This time they kill it off and now there's only twelve minutes of game time left to catch up by two goals. With perfect timing the Leafs draw a penalty for a power play and a chance to score.

They don't score.

And there's five minutes left in the game and my attention is waining here now that we are approaching 1:00 a.m. in Toronto. Apparently the Leafs' is too as they can't clear the puck out of their zone even with control, and Rielly can't keep it in the Sharks zone, his one job, even with a near perfect pass.

We now have an empty net and the Sharks somehow can't get it in there despite four clear chances to do so, and then Tavares gets one back with one minute left on the clock giving the team a tiny ray of hope.

And then Willy does it and ties the game with 12 seconds left!

Overtime

Still plenty of time for a shootout!

Matthews has the highlight shot of OT but it goes off the post.

Marner gets one too that goes too high.

Shootout

This is all Cathy's fault. The Leafs better win it now.

And they don't. Game over at 1:19 a.m. ET. Leafs lose 6-5.

The late game comeback was impressive, but the Leafs didn't give this game away to a really bad team in the shootout, they gave it away in the first period.

Post-Game

Here's the game heatmap at 5-on-5.

This is mercifully the last of the very late games on the calendar. The Leafs next game is Saturday against the Kings at the normal 7:00 p.m. start time.

Game Coverage