The Toronto Maple Leafs exited their California road swing on Sunday night, and by all accounts, it was a success. After a less-than-inspiring 6-5 shootout loss to the league-worst San Jose Sharks on Thursday night, the Leafs followed it up with a 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings, handing them only their fourth regulation loss at home all year, and then capped it off with a 3-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night. They left the state with five of six possible points and now have a three-point lead on the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers for first in the Atlantic Division.
The Leafs initially opened the scoring with a Matthew Knies goal, but it was disallowed after it was challenged, and the results found that Mitch Marner had played the puck with a high stick shortly before the goal. Marner addressed it after the game and cleared up why it was called off.
The disallowed goal didn’t faze the Leafs at all, with Max Domi responding with a last-minute goal in the first period, and a pretty one at that.
Marner, who was teammates with Domi on the London Knights in his junior days, was not shocked by the skill he displayed on that goal.
“Yeah, unreal. It’s not surprising, that’s what he’s got in his bag. I’ve seen it for many years, I’ve seen it since London, so, it’s a hell of a fake shot to get across, pull it to the backhand, get it up in a hurry,” Marner said. “It’s a great play by him, but also by his two teammates, [Scott] Laughty reading the play in the D-zone to get it to Cal [Jarnkrok], to kick it out to Max and draw two D-men towards them, you let Max have the time and space to do his thing, and when you do that you can make some steady plays.”
Marner followed up Domi’s goal with a highlight-reel goal of his own, chasing down the puck and creating a breakaway for himself before deking out Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal.
Marner didn’t address his goal when speaking to the media postgame but instead gave credit to the fourth line of Steven Lorentz, David Kampf, and Pontus Holmberg for creating the third goal, which came in the form of an odd-angle tip by Lorentz after Kampf threw the puck on net. He called it the difference of the game.
“I thought our fourth line played well tonight, controlling the puck, making plays, driving the puck deep in the o-zone,” Marner told reporters. “Very happy to see them rewarded, especially for that type of goal. Big play by Dave [Kampf], big tip from Stevie [Lorentz]. The whole three of them played great.”
Although Marner acknowledged that the team wasn’t happy following their loss to the Sharks, he was proud of the way they worked to secure two points in their next two games.
“These last two [games], both teams very good, hard to play against, so we knew that these were important points and we wanted to get them. I’m just happy with us digging in and battling for them.”
The Maple Leafs will play what’s arguably their biggest game of the season on Wednesday night when they host the Florida Panthers.
