Toronto Maple Leafs center John Tavares, right, battles for the puck in front of Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Logan Thompson at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Nov. 8.Nick Turchiaro/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
The Maple Leafs dominated for most of the night but ended up with a tough 4-3 loss to the Golden Knights on Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena.
Reilly Smith flipped a puck over goaltender Erik Kallgren 23 seconds into overtime to give Vegas its eighth consecutive victory. It ended a three-game winning streak for Toronto, which fell to 7-4-3.
The club took five of six points in a three-game stretch against Boston, Carolina and Vegas – three of the best teams in the league.
The Maple Leafs led 3-2 in the third before coughing up the tying goal – also by Smith – and then the game winner in extra time.
“If you want to be elite, you have to manage and close out games,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said.
Timothy Liljegren had the first two-goal game of his NHL career and Kallgren made 16 saves in the defeat.
Liljegren, who had scored just five times in his first 76 games with Toronto, snapped a shot past Vegas goaltender Logan Thompson to tie the score 1-1 in the first period and put Toronto up 3-2 in the second on a long slap shot.
Smith scored shorthanded to tie it at 3-3 with 8:17 remaining in the third period.
The loss was difficult to take because the Maple Leafs had to battle back after allowing a goal only 45 seconds into the contest.
They fell behind before fans were barely settled in their seats when Nicolas Roy converted a turnover by Rasmus Sandin and Vegas went ahead 1-0.
The Maple Leafs got the goal back a little more than four minutes later when Liljegren snapped a shot into the back of the net from 34 feet out. It was Liljegren’s first goal in the third game since he returned to active duty after undergoing hernia surgery before training camp began.
Eventually Jack Eichel finished off a beautiful tic-tac-toe from Mark Stone and Chandler Stephenson two minutes, five seconds before the first intermission. Vegas went to the intermission with a 2-1 lead.
Kallgren kept the Maple Leafs close in the second 20-minute frame. He stopped point-blank shots and dived to cover up pucks.
As the period wore on, Toronto established momentum and kept the Golden Knights largely pinned in their own end. That paid off when Mitch Marner skated and stickhandled through several opposing players and deposited a wrist shot past Thompson to tie the score 2-2 with 6:10 remaining.
With the Maple Leafs again dominating zone time, Liljegren unleashed a long slap shot that evaded the Vegas goalie and gave the home team a 3-2 lead a little more than three minutes later.
The goal atoned for an error Liljegren made that led to Vegas’s second goal. He and Justin Holl, who has one goal, are the only defencemen to score for Toronto this season.
“We need more contributions from our defence,” Keefe said.
Kallgren made the start again with Ilya Samsonov on the injured list with a knee injury. Samsonov skated earlier in the day but his return is uncertain. He was hurt on Saturday night against Boston.
“All things considered he is feeling pretty good,” head coach Sheldon Keefe said earlier in the day.
That left Kallgren in the crease against Vegas with Keith Petruzzelli, who was called up on Sunday from the AHL Marlies, as his backup.
Kallgren entered with 1-1-2 record and a .904 save percentage, which was greatly boosted by stopping 36 of the last 37 shots he had faced in the four previous periods. Petruzzelli, who spent last season with the Newfoundland Growlers of the ECHL, has yet to appear in an NHL game.
The Golden Knights missed the playoffs in 2021-22 in an injury-riddled season but are healthy now and have not lost since they beat Toronto in Las Vegas on Oct. 24.
They are now 12-2 and 7-1 on the road and are getting the anticipated excellent play from Eichel, who leads the club with 15 points. They have seven players with 10 or more. Eichel was acquired in a trade last year while recovering from neck surgery.
He has 15 goals and 24 points now in 19 games against Toronto.
“They didn’t have that No. 1 centre and that changes a lot of things,” Keefe said of Vegas. “He is a game breaker.”
With both Robin Lehner and Laurent Brossoit unavailable due to injury, Thompson, an undrafted rookie, has taken over in the net.
Thompson entered 6-2 with a .934 save percentage. His backup, Adin Hill, is 5-0. Between them they have held eight of 14 opponents to two goals or fewer. He made 28 saves in the victory.
“I don’t think anybody has ever felt you are going to be in for an easy night when you play Vegas,” Keefe said. “They’ve been an elite team since they came into the league.”
Vegas swept this year’s two-game series. Toronto’s 3-1 loss in Las Vegas last month occurred in the second game of a five-game road trip where things went sideways.
“We were still trying to find our game a little bit and we came out flat,” Auston Matthews, the Toronto centre, said of that defeat. He entered the contest with four goals in the last four games and five in six. “We’ve made a lot of progress since that game.”
Toronto entered the evening with consecutive wins over Philadelphia, Boston and Carolina and were 7-4-2 – a feat when one considers that four losses preceded that.
“It’s not an easy league,” Matthews said earlier in the day. “You go through adversity at times. Sometimes it is earlier and harder than you expect. You roll with the punches and put in the work and crawl out of it.
“We are coming off a good week here and got some good wins. We just want to carry that momentum forward.”
After three games in four days, the Maple Leafs will not play again until the Pittsburgh Penguins pay a visit on Friday.