The Colorado Avalanche beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-3 at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday night, handing Toronto a fourth straight regulation loss and a sixth defeat in seven games. Gabriel Landeskog scored twice, including the winner early in the third period, and Colorado scored the final three goals of the night to pull away from a game that was tied 3-3 in the third, according to The Canadian Press report carried by TSN.
Devon Toews added a goal and an assist for Colorado (11-6-2), with Brock Nelson, Artturi Lehkonen and Martin Necas, into an empty net, scoring the rest. Mackenzie Blackwood made 28 saves and Cale Makar added two assists. Darren Raddysh, Easton Cowan and Jack Roslovic each replied with a goal and an assist for Toronto (8-10-2), and Sergei Bobrovsky finished with 22 stops.
Join The iimiTV Letter
Enter your email and we will send you a confirmation link. Click it and your first edition lands on Friday.
Fifty One Seconds That Decided The Night
Toronto had the building believing early in the third period. Roslovic tied the score 3-3 at 4:11 of the period, finishing a play set up by Cowan and Raddysh, and for a moment a team on a losing run looked ready to drag itself out of one. The moment lasted 51 seconds.
Landeskog bagged the winner at 5:02 of the third when he was left all alone in front of Bobrovsky, restoring the Colorado lead almost as quickly as Toronto had erased it. Lehkonen added insurance at 17:15 and Necas hit the empty net at 17:30, and a game Toronto had within its reach finished as a three goal loss. The pattern is becoming the story of this homestand: the Leafs compete, the Leafs tie it, and then the details desert them at the exact moment the game is there to be taken.
Earlier, Raddysh had given Toronto a 1-0 lead with a blast clocked at 92.89 miles per hour, the fourth fastest shot to result in a goal across the league this season, according to the NHL. Landeskog’s first of the night and goals from Toews and Nelson pushed Colorado ahead before Cowan and Roslovic pulled Toronto level, setting up the third period swing that decided everything.
Bobrovsky And A Crease Under Scrutiny
The goaltending conversation in Toronto is not going away. The 38 year old Bobrovsky, a two time Stanley Cup champion and two time Vezina Trophy winner signed in free agency on July 1, has allowed three goals or more in 12 of his 13 starts this season. A contender can survive a lot of problems in November. It cannot survive needing four or five goals every night just to reach overtime.
The defensive picture around him is not helping. Morgan Rielly left the treatment picture cloudier after this one, listed day to day with a lower body injury, while centre Colton Sissons is out week to week with a lower body injury. Top line winger Kirill Marchenko and defencemen Marshall Rifai and Nick Blankenburg also remain sidelined week to week. Roslovic, returning from a lower body injury, and shutdown defenceman Chris Tanev, back from load management, both returned after sitting out Sunday’s 4-0 loss to New Jersey, and both were needed on a night when the lineup still looked patched together.
What Four Straight Losses Actually Mean
At 8-10-2, Toronto sits below .500 in mid November with six losses in seven games and a homestand that keeps finding new ways to hurt. The offence is not the core problem: Raddysh, Cowan and Roslovic each produced a goal and an assist against one of the West’s best teams, and the first line outshot Colorado heavily in its minutes. The problem is the complete game, the sixty minute game, and the five minutes after a big goal either way.
Colorado, for its part, keeps looking like a standard Toronto has to measure itself against. Makar played after leaving Sunday’s practice in Denver with an unspecified injury, declared himself ready on Tuesday morning and set up two goals by night. The Avalanche have won two straight and five of their last seven, and they visit the Ottawa Senators on Thursday.
Toronto hosts the Minnesota Wild on Thursday, and the questions waiting for them are now familiar ones. Can the Leafs protect a tie game in the third period. Can their goaltender give them one night below three against. And can a team with this much top end talent stop a slide before a bad week becomes the shape of its season.
