The Maple Leafs had a winless weekend. The Carolina Hurricanes defeated Toronto 5-4 on Sunday at Scotiabank Arena, the Leafs’ second home defeat in as many nights.
The game started off on the right skate. William Nylander opened the scoring for Toronto five minutes into the first. Morgan Reilly snapped a breakout pass from behind the Toronto net to Matthew Knies at the opposing blue line. Knies centred the puck to Nylander, who snuck between the Carolina defenders, then snuck the puck by Carolina goalie Brandon Bussi to make it 1-0.
Carolina countered at the 8:34 mark of period one. Sebastian Aho scored on the power play, burying a cross-ice pass by Nick Elhers over the glove of the Leafs’ goalie, Denis Hildeby.
The Hurricanes took the lead about six minutes later on Seth Jarvis’ tenth of the season, again glove side past Hildeby to make it 2-1.
Toronto responded one minute later. John Tavares stole the puck in the Hurricanes’ end and put it on net. Bussi made the initial save, but a couple of rebounds later, Tavares found himself with the puck on his stick alone in front of the Carolina crease for the tap-in and the tie.
Nylander put the Leafs back on top with his second goal of the game. With only 59 seconds remaining in the first period, the winger ripped a shot through Bussi on the power play for the 3-2 lead.
Auston Matthews stretched the margin to 4-2 with his ninth of the season, 11:03 into the second. Jake McCabe found the captain alone on the side of the net, and 34 slammed it home for the two-goal advantage.
Unfortunately, for the Leafs, that’s when the fun ended. Carolina defencemen, Sean Walker, sniped a wrister from the point to trim the lead to 4-3 with just over three minutes left in the second. Then, an uncovered Taylor Hall tied the game 4-4 with a scramble goal in front of the Toronto net 3:20 into the third period. Logan Stankoven completed the comeback for the Hurricane, notching his fifth goal of the season off a pretty Carolina passing play for the 5-4 game winner.
The loss dropped Toronto to 8-7-1 on the season. The Maple Leafs’ next game is Tuesday night in Boston.
