The Leafs played a game that fits a style they've established this season, with Phil Kessel and the top line delivering an early lead in a close first period, before the team were completely overwhelmed, depending on Jonathan Bernier to bail them out. This time, it worked well, as this much-hyped road trip got off to a strong start.
A solid first period for Toronto, which had a fairly poor start, but really pressed in the last 3 minutes, getting a powerplay goal from Bozak and another score from Kessel in the final minute. They were outchanced, but only marginally.
The second was a wasteland for the Leafs, who have to thank Jonathan Bernier for getting out of the period still ahead. Paul Ranger added an early goal, Kessel again the provider, but the Ducks dominated the period, outchancing the Leafs 12-3, one of their worst periods in a long time.
Typically, the Leafs have been very poor defending leads in the third period, but that wasn't the case in this games,as they were outchanced, but for the most part managed to keep things from ballooning too badly, only losing out 5-2 at even strength. After a few chances in the first half of the period, Anaheim had a stretch of more than seven minutes in which they didn't get a chance, but when they did get four down the stretch, including a couple with an empty net, Bernier was there.
The Leafs were obliterated in chances, 22-9 at ES and 28-12 overall, but their 5-on-5 close chances were more reasonable, all coming in the first, which ended 6-4 to Anahiem.
A summary of the scoring chances:
| Status |
Overall |
ES |
| Team |
Toronto |
Anaheim |
Toronto |
Anaheim |
| 1 |
6 |
6 |
4 |
6 |
| 2 |
3 |
13 |
3 |
12 |
| 3 |
3 |
9 |
2 |
4 |
| Total |
12 |
28 |
9 |
22 |
Details below.
You wouldn't have thought it after about 25 minutes or so, but this ended up being the most complete Leaf game of the last week or so, as they came back from down 2-0 to Anaheim to earn a 4-2 win. Three of the goals came from Phil Kessel, scoring his second Leaf hat-trick.
I thought I had gotten distracted when I went back to my charts for the first period, as I had just one chance in the whole frame, the Anaheim goal. A rewatch showed that I wasn't wrong; the first period had the fewest chances of any Leaf period so far in the season.
The second period was then evenly split, but the Leafs were ahead at even strength, as well as scoring three goals to take the lead. Cricitally, this included surviving a solid stretch of 5-on-3, just after tying the game. They lost the third period overall, but won it at even strength, despite score effects seeing Anaheim push the play looking for an equalizer.
The last time Toronto allowed less than 10 even strength chances in a game was at Nashville, also the last time that they managed to win the even strength chance battle.
A summary of the scoring chances:
| Status |
Overall |
ES |
| Team |
Toronto |
Anaheim |
Toronto |
Anaheim |
| 1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
| 2 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
2 |
| 3 |
6 |
9 |
6 |
5 |
| Total |
11 |
15 |
10 |
8 |
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