Maple Leafs’ winless skid at eight after loss in Montreal

Article content

Another ugly evening for the Maple Leafs, this time in La Belle Province.

Article content

A terrible first period against the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre was the Leafs’ undoing on Tuesday night and resulted in a 3-1 loss.

Article content

Article content

The Leafs are 0-6-2 in eight games since the break for the Winter Olympics ended and have not won since Feb. 3 in Edmonton. It’s the Leafs’ longest winless skid since the 2014-15 season, when the club went 11 games (0-10-1) without a victory, the longest winless streak in club history that did not include ties.

Leafs captain Auston Matthews has gone 12 games without scoring a goal, putting him one game shy of his career-high of 13 goalless games, a drought that happened in his 2016-17 NHL rookie season. Matthews, who has one goal in his past 16 games, had two shots on goal.

The Leafs didn’t score on two power plays. Matthews has four power-play goals this season, and none since Jan. 1.

Article content

Article content

Article content

No Leafs resistance

The Canadiens built a 2-0 lead in the first period thanks to what amounted to full domination of the Leafs through 20 minutes. Shots on goal were 18-5 and attempts were 33-9 as Montreal ran around the offensive zone with no pushback from Toronto.

Oliver Kapanen opened the scoring at 4:46 when the Leafs forgot to look at him, let alone check him, in front of Leafs goalie Joseph Woll.

After Canadiens goalie Jakub Dobes made saves on Dakota Joshua and Max Domi on a couple of rare Leafs chances, Phillip Danault put the home side up by two goals at 14:41.

A favourable bounce off the end glass went to Danault, and the Leafs couldn’t recover before he put the puck in the net.

Jake McCabe fought Brendan Gallagher after the latter crunched Easton Cowan with an open-ice hit.

Article content

Article content

William Nylander got the Leafs on the board at 14:33 of the second period to cut the Canadiens’ lead to 2-1. He stopped a Montreal clearing attempt and scored his 22nd goal on a nifty give-and-go with Cowan to put the high point on a better period for Toronto.

Jake Evans scored into an empty Leafs net in the final minute.

Article content

Forward Bo Groulx made his Leafs debut after he was recalled from the Toronto Marlies and had a team-high six hits in 13 minutes 45 seconds of ice time.

[email protected]

X: @koshtorontosun

Article content