Dakota Joshua made his presence felt Wednesday night. The power forward had a goal, an assist, and plenty of hits, helping the Maple Leafs to a 4-3 win against the visiting New York Rangers at Scotiabank Arena.
While both teams may be struggling through disappointing seasons, they did not disappoint fans hoping for an entertaining hockey game.
Offence was on full display in the first period. The Rangers fired 14 shots at Toronto netminder Joseph Woll. He stopped them all. The Leafs answered with ten shots of their own, beating Igor Shesterkin twice.
Jake McCabe opened the scoring with his 4th on the season at 5:15. Shesterkin got caught up in a pile-up of bodies in front of the Rangers’ goal. McCabe snuck in and flipped the puck over his fallen body for the 1-0 lead. Nicholas Robertson added a goal at the 12:08 mark. Max Domi found Robertson racing down to the face-off dot. The winger zipped a shot by Shesterkin to make it 2-0.
Dakota Joshua pushed the lead to 3-0 with his 10th of the season, a wrist shot from inside the circle at 5:41 of the second.
The Rangers fought back with a continued onslaught of shots, finally beating Woll on an Alexis Lafreniere power play goal at 10:16. Mika Zibanejad scored on another man-advantage at 18:01, ripping home a snapshot from a tough angle to close the gap to 3-2.
Toronto found some breathing room when John Tavares scored an unassisted goal at 11:57 of the third. The centremen went end-to-end, causing a turnover in his own zone, skating down, and unloading a wrister that beat Shersterkin to push the lead to 4-2.
The relief was short-lived. Zibanejad responded with his second of the game just over a minute later, but Woll shut the door from there after securing the 4-3 win.
Next up, the Maple Leafs head to St Louis Saturday night to take on the Blues.
