Not the ones where everything is aligned, where you flood teams with dominance like a machine, every speed that turns with impeccable precision. They are nights like this: you are still in pain from yesterday’s inclination, the best of your best out of line, lines being thrown in the blender at the last minute. He is a tough opponent who looks at you from the other side of the ice, runs through you every opportunity he has, fights for his life in the playoffs when yours has already been signed, sealed and delivered. In those moments, what do you have? On Sunday night at the Scotiabank Arena, the Toronto Maple Leafs proved relentless in the challenge, knocking down the tough New York Islanders 4-2 without Rocket Richard Trophy winner Auston Matthews. And in this way, conquering a franchise record 50th victory and 106th point. They did not make it easy on themselves. With the tone of the opening draw thanks to a check from Ross Johnston of New York to veteran Mark Giordano, the Maple Leafs began their journey through the mud. They stumbled early, the islanders gave a very easy power-play index late in the first, as Ilya Lyubushkin performed what his coach later called a “textbook screen” on his own netminder, allowing Anthony Beauvillier to slip in and out. the first past of the game Jack Campbell. But the Maple Leafs reacted, returning to ground just minutes later, with Mitch Marner hovering in the net invisible like a ghost in the box, finally landing at the perfect spot to hit a Giordano rebound on top of Ilya Sorokin. It was a similar story in the middle frame. This time it was Alex Kerfoot who took over the goal’s own goal, a failed clearance attempt in front of Campbell who accidentally entered the Toronto net. Again, they climbed back, with Kerfoot taking it on his shoulders and undoing his mistake with a great stuttering set-up for Pierre Engvall in a two-on-one match in the middle of the night. Minutes later, William Nylander – who was throwing the whole game, with his skillful stick, without assists that helped Kerfoot’s spring and Engvall draw – took a pass from John Tavares in power play and shot a house to give his Maple Leafs. the lead. They did not leave it from there. It is emblematic of how this season went for this team. Stumble early, counterattack, take off. “There was very little complacency in our team. We had a difficult start at the beginning of the year. Many things were said outside the room, inside the room and coming from there to where we are at the moment [says] “a lot,” Kerfoot said of that post-race trip. But just like Sunday night, it could have escaped them just as easily if they had left. “I think he can do one of two things in a team,” Kerfoot continued, referring to the gossip from the controversial choir earlier this year. “It can either break things up or bring you closer. “I think our game on the ice really talked about how we responded to that.” The victory over the Islanders gave the Maple Leafs fans a chance to take stock, to see beyond the historic dominance that has become a night routine for the team’s usual focal point. It was the Auston Matthews show in Toronto recently, and rightly so, given the disgusting air the young sniper puts himself in. orbit. Throwing his 34th goal of the year on Sunday night, Marner also collected his 94th point, equaling his career record in 15 fewer games than the last time he reached the sum, and with another eight goals this time. The 24-year-old has been in the league since the calendar turned from 2021 to 2022 – no other NHLer has surpassed him since January 1, when Marner’s scored an incredible 72 points in 42 games. He has scored over a point per game since November, over 1.50 per game since January, over 1.65 in the last two months. The Nylander power-play index guarantees that it will put in a new staff better before the end of the year, also aiming to level its staff to 31 – news for Nylander, who laughed when told he had leveled the 31-spot: “I did not know that … I thought I had more goals.” – to keep up with the 74 points he already had in his career. And then there is the ongoing transformation of Engwal and Kerfut’s best 50th point of his career, making the Maple Leafs the only club with seven players above the 50 point mark. Whether one of these matters in the end remains to be seen, but the team can take comfort in the fact that it is pushing harder than ever to correct past mistakes after the season, even when keywords are circulating in and out. the faction. “You know, we’ve had a lot of kids lose a lot of games this year, including me, and the kids have played a bigger role, and we’ve won a lot of big games,” Marner said after Sunday. win. “It’s something we always talk about – we just go up and get more publicity, and the guys have thrived on that.” Kerfoot added: “There will be injuries. Each team deals with them throughout the year and we have played with many different children throughout the year. And we really moved forward. “ This is the most critical training these Maple Leafs can receive this season. There is no doubt that they are an elite team, if everything is lined up correctly, if everything falls in their favor. The questions have always been about what happens when plans collapse, when plot twists arrive. It is not about perfecting the way you would rather win – it is about learning how to win any game, in any way. Tonight, they did. And in the eyes of their coach, they have done it for a good season this season. “Look at how we played, look at the results we got and how we got those results – especially against some of the top teams and teams we are going to face in our category, whether at home or on the road – we have done a good job,” he said. Keefe, “and we have good results.” Without their best selves, they have proved that they still have elite talent, that they can still face opponents facing the game with an approach opposite to their own and come out with two points. They even showed that they can still write history without No. 34. But all this will only matter if they become a brick in the path to the place they really want to reach. This is clear from the tone that these Leafs sounded in the wake of the official creation of the best regular season in the history of the Maple Leafs. “It’s a great season. It is unfair to win a lot of games in this league. There are many good teams. So it’s very nice to be part of it. “But we have bigger and better things ahead of us,” Kerfoot said of the franchise. “It really means nothing if we do not achieve anything in the playoffs. “But it’s miserable in this regular season to win games and we do that on a fairly consistent basis.”
