The Vancouver Canucks will be trying to complete their four-game road trip with a winning record Saturday night when they visit the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Canucks won for the second time in three games on their trip Thursday night, 4-3 over the New York Islanders in Elmont, N.Y.
Vancouver was able to take advantage of a travel-weary Islanders team that had just finished a five-game Western Conference swing.
“We were in front of the net, and we’re getting good tips and everything,” Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We kept going at it. And, eventually, we knew that their travel has been terrible, that they played five games on the road and they came home and they didn’t practice. So, if we kept going at them, they might tire. I don’t know if they did or if they didn’t. But the result was as if they did.”
The Canucks will be facing a different situation on Saturday.
The Maple Leafs will be out to atone for an embarrassing 5-1 loss to the visiting Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday when they showed a lack of effort. It was disappointing for the first capacity crowd allowed for a Toronto home game since Dec. 11 following the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions.
“It was terrible from start to finish,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Offensively, in terms of how we played with the puck, we were really careless and just didn’t have much happening offensively and made one big play that led to a goal but just offensively (Wednesday) we were abysmal, all four lines.”
Petr Mrazek stopped 26 shots in starting two consecutive games for the first time this season. No. 1 goaltender Jack Campbell, who has been struggling recently, will start on Saturday.
The problem was up and down the roster on Wednesday, however. “All in all, when you look at the game and look at the effort it was disappointing,” Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly said.
The Leafs had won three in a row before falling to the Sabres, but they are a plodding 5-5-1 over their past 11 games.
Maple Leafs captain John Tavares had his goal drought stretch to 14 games on Wednesday. He has not scored since Jan. 29.
One of the Canucks’ more notable scoring droughts ended Thursday when Nils Hoglander ended a 20-gamer with his ninth goal of the season. He had not scored since Jan. 1.
“I just think that’s going to do wonders for him, I hope, you know getting the monkey off your back type of scenario,” Boudreau said. “There was a shift before he had (the puck) and he almost fanned on it, it just went to the corner and he’s just grabbing that stick so tight. To get a great feed by (Conor) Garland and to put it in, I thought, really lightened his mind, if that makes any sense.”
It tied the game at 9:34 of the third period and Vasily Podkolzin scored what proved to be the winner at 10:19.
Ondrej Kase (undisclosed injury), who has missed the past two games, participated in practice for Toronto on Friday and is listed as questionable for Saturday. Rasmus Sandin (illness) did not take part in practice.
The Canucks defeated the Maple Leafs 3-2 on Feb. 12 at Vancouver.
–Field Level Media