New Jersey Devils centre Jack Hughes scores on Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Joseph Woll during third period NHL hockey action in Toronto on Tuesday, March 26, 2024.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
The Maple Leafs looked like winners at times on Tuesday night but not for long enough.
They outshot the New Jersey Devils 25-10 over the first 20 minutes – their most shots in any period this season – but still trailed 2-1 heading into the first intermission.
Things went haywire after that in a 6-3 loss at Scotiabank Arena that saw Toronto give up the lead twice, allow two goals on breakaways and fail to score on two power plays.
The Devils, who have lost one more game than they have won but remain in the hunt for a playoff berth, scored the contest’s last four goals.
“I hated lots of our game tonight,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “I think instead of having a strong first period and building on it, we overdid it and played a very immature game.
“The game invited it. You get 25 shots and everyone feels great and then we got incredibly sloppy and careless. From the top of our lineup to the bottom we just weren’t good enough.”
The Maple Leafs ended up with a 45-25 advantage in shots and a poor result. New Jersey netminder Jake Allen turned away 42 of 45 shots fired in his direction in his 10th victory of the season. He was obtained by the Devils at the trade deadline.
Joseph Woll had 19 saves on 24 shots in the defeat. He gave up a goal on the first shot for the second straight game.
“You can’t let in the first shot,” Keefe said.
Auston Matthews scored his NHL-leading 59th goal for Toronto, William Nylander tied a career high with his 40th and Tyler Bertuzzi scored just 64 seconds after the opening puck drop for his 16th.
New Jersey’s Hughes brothers combined for three goals – with Jack netting the final two and Luke the first. Nico Hischier had a goal and two assists while Jesper Bratt and Curtis Lazar had three assists each.
Toronto has lost two in a row but remains in third place in the Atlantic Division behind Boston and Florida. New Jersey is fifth in the Metropolitan Division and five points out of a wildcard position in the Eastern Conference.
Toronto played without winger Mitch Marner, who is recovering from an ankle injury, defencemen Morgan Rielly and Joel Edmundson (undisclosed) and Mark Giordano, who has a concussion.
The Maple Leafs next outing is at home on Thursday against the Washington Capitals. The meeting with the Devils was the first of three to be played over the next three weeks.
After Bertuzzi scored on a breakaway, Luke Hughes tied it at 1-1 on a shot through a screen with 15:35 left in the first period. Then Hischier put the Devils ahead off a crisp pass from Bratt with a little more than two minutes before the teams headed to their dressing rooms for the first game break. When Hischier scored, New Jersey had been outshot 22-7.
Nylander and Matthews scored 1 minute and 37 seconds apart in the second period to put Toronto up 3-2 but Timo Meier answered for the Devils just 34 seconds later.
A 10-foot wrist shot by Max Willman late in the second put New Jersey up 4-3 and held up as the game winner. Jack Hughes scored twice in the last 3 minutes 13 seconds, once into an empty net.
At the morning skate, Matt Murray participated for the first time all season. The 29-year-old goalie is recovering from bi-lateral hip surgery and could be cleared to play in early April..
Ilya Samsonov, who was injured late in Saturday’s victory over the Edmonton Oilers, is expected to return to practice on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Keefe warned his team about the Devils, calling them one of the league’s most talented clubs on offence.
“This is another team with a high-octane offence and it will make you pay in transition if you give them easy ice,” Keefe said. So there are lots of reasons for us to be dialed in here tonight.
“We haven’t clinched anything. Nothing is secured at this point and we need to approach it that way. We have to have a level of urgency to everything we are doing here.”
Instead, Toronto let the game slip away.
“I thought we had a really good start,” Matthews said. “Then we came out and had problems with small details. It was a little bit of an immature game by us.
“We have to have more of a killer instinct.”