Maple Leafs vs Golden Knights: 3-0 Lead Gone, Bobrovsky's 40 Saves Earn a Point

Maple Leafs vs Golden Knights: the result

The Toronto Maple Leafs scored three goals in the first 8:37 at T-Mobile Arena on Thursday, Oct. 8, and still lost 4-3 in a shootout. Maple Leafs vs Golden Knights turned into two different games: Toronto owned the first half of the first period, and Vegas owned almost everything after it. Rookie Trevor Connelly scored the only goal of the fifth shootout round to win it.

Sergei Bobrovsky made 40 saves and is the reason Toronto left the desert with anything. Vegas outshot the Leafs 43-24, and after Nick Paul made it 3-0, Toronto did not score again in the remaining 51 minutes of regulation or in overtime. The point moves the Leafs to 2-2-1. Vegas improved to 4-1-0 and has won three straight.

Two nights after Toronto erased a 3-0 deficit to beat Nashville, it gave a 3-0 lead straight back. LeafsLurker's read: the comeback against the Predators and the collapse in Vegas are the same lesson told twice. This team plays its best hockey in short bursts, and it is not yet good enough at the boring parts of a game to protect what those bursts produce.

How the scoring went

The goals, per the NHL.com game recap:

TimeTeamScorerHow it went inScore1st, 0:34TorontoJack RoslovicBanked off Adin Hill's pad from below the goal line1-0 TOR1st, 3:20TorontoEaston CowanBreakaway wrist shot2-0 TOR1st, 8:37TorontoNick PaulTipped a Darren Raddysh one-timer from the point3-0 TOR1st, 17:36VegasMark StoneSlap shot over Bobrovsky's glove3-1 TOR2nd, 1:12VegasBrett HowdenFinished a Mitch Marner pass at the far post3-2 TOR2nd, 3:58VegasJack EichelPenalty shot after Morgan Rielly tripped him on a breakaway3-3

Roslovic's goal came off his own forecheck, with Auston Matthews and Kirill Marchenko credited with the assists, and NHL.com noted it was the second-fastest goal to open a road season in franchise history; only Stew Gavin, at 27 seconds in 1983, was quicker. Cowan, promoted to the top six before the game, finished a breakaway three minutes later. Paul's tip came at the end of a sequence Gavin McKenna helped build from the third line, and McKenna was credited with an assist.

Then it turned. Stone's slapper late in the first gave Vegas life, Howden scored 72 seconds into the second off a Marner feed, and Rielly's trip on a clean Eichel breakaway handed the Vegas captain a penalty shot he did not miss. Three goals in a span of 6:22 of game time, spread across an intermission, and a three-goal lead was gone.

Sergei Bobrovsky kept Toronto alive

Bobrovsky's numbers will read as a loss, but this was his best game as a Maple Leaf by a distance. He stopped 40 of 43 shots through regulation and overtime, a .930 save percentage, and turned aside four Vegas power plays as part of a penalty kill that did not allow a goal. In the shootout, after Braeden Bowman scored in the opening round, he stopped the next three Vegas shooters.

Jim Hiller said what everyone watching could see. "In the end, Bobrovsky probably got us a point, right?" the head coach said after the game, as reported by Maple Leafs Hot Stove. Chris Tanev was more direct, telling reporters, per The Hockey News, "He was great. Some huge saves in the second when things sort of got off-kilter a bit," and adding that the skaters need to be better for him. Bobrovsky, per NHL.com, called it "a big point for us" against a good team.

The awkward part is the record. Bobrovsky is now 0-2-1 in three starts, after two 3-2 regulation losses to Montreal and Ottawa. Across the three games he has stopped 87 of 96 shots, roughly a .906 save percentage by our count. That is not the line of a goalie who is losing games for his team. We made the broader case for the signing, and why a slow start would not change it, in our piece on Mats Sundin's role in the Bobrovsky deal, and Thursday was the best evidence for it yet.

Where the game got away

The shot count tells most of the story. Toronto managed 24 shots on Hill all night. Vegas, which had 43, kept the puck in the Toronto end for long stretches of the second period, and the Leafs spent the middle frame chasing.

Discipline was part of it. Vegas had four power plays and a penalty shot; Toronto had one power play. The penalty kill held every time, which is now a habit, but four kills is four stretches of two minutes in which a team trying to protect a lead cannot push the other way. We wrote this week about how well the Leafs penalty kill has played through four games. It is now 14-for-15 on the season. A good kill is not a substitute for staying out of the box.

Hiller acknowledged the turning point in his post-game comments, describing how the game's momentum shifted after a penalty and saying the group was desperate through that stretch. That is honest. It is also a description of a team that went into a shell with a three-goal lead on the road, in its first game this season without last change.

Hiller's line changes, and what they produced

Hiller came into the game with new combinations. Cowan moved up to the right side of John Tavares and William Nylander's line, McKenna dropped to the third line with Nick Paul, and Marchenko stayed with Matthews and Roslovic. Early on, it worked: all three of the first goals came from different lines, and Cowan and McKenna both landed on the scoresheet.

Once Vegas took over, the blender came back out. In the third period Hiller put Nylander with Matthews and Roslovic and gave Marchenko a turn with Tavares and Cowan. The Hockey News reported that the Matthews-Nylander-Roslovic look was out-attempted 13-7 in its time together. None of the changes found a fourth goal, and Toronto did not score again after the first period.

LeafsLurker's view: the McKenna and Cowan swap was the right call, and it should stay. The constant third-period reshuffling is a different matter. When a team is being outshot, changing the names on the lines rarely fixes it; winning more puck battles in its own end does.

The shootout and the injuries

Marchenko and Bowman traded goals in the first round. After that, Hill stopped Matthews, Nylander, McKenna and Tavares, and Connelly beat Bobrovsky with a backhand move in the fifth round. NHL.com noted that Connelly is the third Vegas rookie to score a game-deciding shootout goal, and that the win was the fifth three-goal comeback in franchise history. Eichel's season-opening point streak also reached five games.

The bigger worry is Oliver Ekman-Larsson. With just under two minutes left in regulation, Vegas defenceman Jeremy Lauzon drove the 35-year-old into the boards and he went down to the ice. Ekman-Larsson went to the room and did not return for overtime. No penalty was called. Asked whether there could have been one, Hiller answered, "I think there could've been a call, yeah," and said he believed Ekman-Larsson would be okay. The team had not provided a further update as of Friday morning. Brandon Duhaime was also shaken up early in the game, according to Maple Leafs Hot Stove's game review, though no injury has been announced.

If Ekman-Larsson cannot go, the obvious replacement is Nick Blankenburg, who signed a one-year, $1.4 million contract on Sept. 27 after a camp tryout and has not yet played a regular-season game. We looked at what Blankenburg brings in our piece from his tryout.

Mitch Marner's first look at his old team

The pre-game storyline was Marner, and he delivered quietly: the primary assist on Howden's goal, which started the second-period swing. "They're a resilient team," Marner said of his Golden Knights, per NHL.com, adding that they stayed with it. We previewed the matchup, including how Marner left and what Vegas looks like under first-year coach Ryan Craig, in our Maple Leafs vs Golden Knights preview.

What's next for the Maple Leafs

The trip continues in Denver on Saturday, Oct. 10, against a Colorado Avalanche team that won the Presidents' Trophy last season, then in Salt Lake City against the Utah Mammoth on Oct. 13. Toronto is home to Buffalo on Oct. 15. The two questions for Saturday are simple: whether Ekman-Larsson is available, and whether Hiller goes back to Bobrovsky after a 40-save night or turns to Anthony Stolarz, who was in net for both of Toronto's wins this season.

The bigger question is structural. Toronto has now been outshot badly in a game it led by three, and its best stretches keep coming in short bursts. Through five games the Leafs have five points. That is not a crisis. It is a team that has not yet learned how to play with a lead, and the Avalanche are not a team that lets you learn on the job. Keep an eye on the Atlantic Division standings as the trip goes on.