The Toronto Maple Leafs finally went 60 minutes without giving up a goal. Of course, like the rest of the 2009-10 season, nothing went according to plan, and the Leafs required the services of both Jonas Gustavsson and backup Joey Macdonald to complete the shutout of the Canadiens in Montreal on Tuesday night.
Jonas Gustavsson played a perfect first period, making 8 saves along the way, but was taken out of the game and admitted to a Montreal hospital with a slight elevation in his heart rate. The measures were of a precautionary nature, and were not taken out of necessity. Some may remember that the young Swede missed much of training camp in order to have minor heart surgery. Gustavsson will be evaluated when he gets back to Toronto, and until then, there’s not much more that’s being said regarding when he’ll return to action.
On the ice, the Leafs put together a very solid effort against their archrivals. The Leafs outshot the Habs in the first 2 periods, 24-17, and finished the game with 31 total shots. Phil Kessel continues to impress, as he contributed two assists on the game, and narrowly missed scoring his 8th goal as a Leaf when he rang a breakaway chance off the post early in the first.
The Leafs got their early goals from some unlikely sources, as Colton Orr and Jeff Finger scored their first and second goals of the season, respectively. Orr is no stranger to the score sheet, but his name usually appears a little further down, in the penalty minutes column. Toronto fans won’t be complaining, however, as it appeared that, at least for one night, the hard work and high shot totals that have been present in the Leafs’ game for the last couple weeks finally paid off.
Tomas Kaberle is now the Eastern Conference assists leader, as he recorded his 24th assist on Orr’s goal 9 ½ minutes into the game. Kessel and Francois Beauchemin assisted on Finger’s tally a little over three minutes later. Kessel got his second helper as he gave Matt Stajan a breakaway pass midway through the 2nd period to give the Leafs a little extra insurance. Joey MacDonald made 18 saves to complete the shutout for Toronto.
Montreal got a pretty decent performance from netminder Carey Price, who made 28 saves for the Habs, but looked flat at both ends of the ice. Aside from one or two good scoring chances, Montreal never really threatened the Leafs’ lead, and spent a large amount of time chasing the puck in their own end. Montreal has now lost three in a row, and now sit just 5 points ahead of the Leafs, who are now 6-5-3 since getting Phil Kessel in the lineup.
Montreal travels to play division leader Buffalo on Thursday, while Toronto will face Rick Nash and the Blue Jackets in Columbus.