Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Garret Sparks (40) makes a save against the Carolina Hurricanes during third period NHL hockey action in Toronto on Tuesday, April 2, 2019.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
The Toronto Maple Leafs had nothing to fight for as far as the NHL playoffs were concerned and looked like it.
The Carolina Hurricanes had their playoff lives at stake but looked almost as listless as the Maple Leafs on Tuesday night. However, they were lucky enough to be playing against a team that only plays defensive hockey on the rare occasions when the mood strikes and, even better, against a goaltender who is playing his way out of town.
Leafs’ backup netminder Garret Sparks coughed up his third softie in as many goals halfway through the third period to do the Hurricanes a major solid, giving them what ended as a 4-1 win. Hurricanes defenceman Dougie Hamilton added an empty-net goal, his second of the game, in the last minute.
The win also put the Hurricanes into the first Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot, one point ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who were trounced 6-2 by the Boston Bruins. The Montreal Canadiens moved into a tie in points with the Blue Jackets at 94 by beating the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2. But they remain on the outside of the playoff picture because Columbus has three more regulation-time and overtime wins.
That Bruins win, by the way, combined with the Leafs loss guaranteed them home advantage in the first-round series between the two teams that will start next week.
Hurricanes centre Jordan Staal said his team is in full one-game-at-a-time mode and was not watching the scoreboard to see how the Blue Jackets were doing. The task at hand was all that mattered.
“We were trying to win a game. I haven’t heard what happened [in Columbus],” Staal said, although he brightened slightly when a reporter passed along the result. “All right. We’ll take that.”
Despite the wide edge in play for the Hurricanes, they were hanging on to a 2-1 lead early in the third period. The game should not have been nearly that close but Staal said it did not bother him and his teammates.
“We try not to get too frustrated in here,” he said. “Obviously when that starts creeping in good things don’t continue to happen. So we wanted to stick with it. We still wanted better for ourselves and keep creating goals.
“We wanted to go get the next one. It was a big thing going into the third period. We found a way to get one.”
Well, it would be more accurate to say Sparks found a way to give them one.
Opinion: Babcock’s positivity mantra has become hockey’s Hail Mary
Opinion: Maple Leafs’ late season limp doesn’t bode well for a lengthy playoff run
Opinion: The Leafs can’t win it all, and yet we expect them to
The ever-helpful Leafs – showing no lingering bitterness about the Hurricanes claiming their former backup goaltender Curtis McElhinney on waivers last fall – started Sparks in goal, the fellow who makes Leafs fans grind their teeth and think fondly of McElhinney. Missing from the lineup were defenceman Jake Muzzin and forward Andreas Johnsson. Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said both players were ill.
Sparks whiffed on Staal’s long shot from the high slot at 9:36 of the third period to give the visitors a 3-1 lead and all the room they needed. That may well be the last goal Sparks surrendered in a Leafs uniform as his play this season was not to a standard that guarantees employment.
By the end of the first period, the Bruins were putting the boots to the Blue Jackets. However, despite all this good fortune and the fact that the Leafs played every bit like a team on the second of back-to-back games, the best the Hurricanes could manage after 20 minutes was a 1-0 lead.
They were all over the disorganized and disinterested Leafs in the first period, outshooting them 10-2 and running up a 26-7 bulge in shot attempts. But there were also a lot of missed opportunities, not to mention a couple of wide-open nets.
The Leafs power play, for example, looked in need of a defibrillator. The Hurricanes gave them the first opportunity of the game, midway through the first period, but the Leafs never managed to control the puck for more than a few seconds and could not get a shot on goaltender Petr Mrazek.
Babcock cut his players some slack when asked why they could be so flat on the same night their first-round opponent, the Bruins, were smacking around the Blue Jackets in a game that had no meaning for them as well. He thought the letdown following Monday’s road win over the New York Islanders, which finally put the Leafs in the post-season officially was excusable.
“What I would say to you is we played [Monday] night and clinched a playoff spot,” Babcock said. “[The Bruins] clinched a playoff spot a while ago. I thought it was an emotional night for our team.
“I actually didn’t think we were very good in the first period [against Carolina]. I thought we battled back and made it a game. I thought Mrazek was excellent. That’s my answer.”
It was actually the Leafs who were the first to put a puck into the net. Auston Matthews started a two-on-one rush and made a superb pass to William Nylander, who beat Mrazek with a shot at 15:01. But ‘Canes head coach Rod Brind’Amour challenged the goal on the basis Nylander was offside and the NHL’s video-review team agreed, wiping out the score.
The Hurricanes also had a goal overturned by the video-review crew, when Brock McGinn scored in the empty net in the final minute of the third period.
But Sparks did his part, maintaining the shaky standard of play that has made number-one goaltender Frederik Andersen one tired Maple Leaf. It was his feet that did the damage.
The Hurricanes finally got a puck behind Sparks three minutes after the Leafs’ goal was waved off. Justin Williams grabbed the puck in the corner and threw it at the net. The puck hit Sparks’ skate blade and bounced into the net.
Sparks’ feet came into play again early in the second period on a Carolina power play. Hamilton got off a shot that Sparks stopped while on his stomach. When the Leafs defence gave Hamilton all the time he needed to reach his own rebound he flicked the puck into the crease where it hit Sparks on the foot and bounced into the net.
But that was all the Hurricanes could manage as the final half of the third period approached. It was not as if the Leafs suddenly woke up and seized control of the game. They were only a little better as the night went on and the game was a lot closer than it should have been.
Leafs centre John Tavares cut the Carolina lead in half with a power-play goal at 10:55 of the second period. It was his 47th goal of the season, a new career-high. Then again, he established his first career-high goal a while back with his 39th of the season.