If the first two exhibition games were any indication of the season to come, Leaf fans should expect to be jumping out of their seats early on and hanging on the edge of them by game’s end.
In a rematch of their opening preseason game, a 4-3 win on Saturday, Toronto faced off against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night at the Scotiabank Arena.
This time, a big first period was not enough to hold off the Sens, as they fought back from an early 2-0 deficit to prevail 3-2 in overtime.
Unlike the Saturday matchup, where the Maple Leafs’ lineup featured mostly backliners and soon-to-be Marlies, the home crowd got the A-list. Auston Matthews, off a given and go with Oliver Ekman-Larsson, started the scoring with a goal at 4:24 of the first period. Bobby McMann added to the lead late in the frame, swiping a no-look Easton Cowan pass into the back of the net at 18:54.
That was the end of the scoring for the Leafs, who relied heavily on the play of goalie Dennis Hildeby to maintain their 2-0 lead through two periods. The 6’ 7’’giant stopped all 23 shots he faced during his 40 minutes of play. Hildeby was replaced in the third by Artur Akhtyamov. The young Russian prospect faced an onslaught of shots, and the Sens finally broke through with an odd-man shorthanded rush that ended with Fabian Zetterlund tapping in a rebound to make it 2-1.
Toronto clung to that one-goal lead all the way to the 17:58 mark of the 3rd, until Shane Pinto tied the game on the power play. Pinto added his second just 16 seconds into overtime after beating Matthews down to the middle of the ice to give Ottawa a 3-2 win.
The loss dropped the Leafs to 1-1 in the pre-season with their next game on Wednesday, the 24th, at Montreal.
