VANCOUVER — As Joseph Woll turned back to watch a puck drift slowly from behind his net onto the stick of Vancouver Canucks forward Conor Garland, Woll quickly had to become a hero.
William Nylander’s gaffe with the puck led to the turnover. But the Toronto Maple Leafs goalie quickly fell, stuck out his left leg, and after stopping Garland’s shot with his skate, became the difference between a much-needed Leafs win and sheer embarrassment with a loss against the league’s worst team.
“Instinct, I guess, a little bit of a heart attack, but I’m glad I saved it,” Woll said with a laugh.
Through the first two middling periods of play, the Leafs had no business laughing or hoping to get out of British Columbia with a win. But they did escape with a 3-2 shootout win, in large part because of Woll. Woll stopped 28 of 30 shots. His work in the third period, when the Leafs still allowed odd-man rushes, was stellar. The Leafs snapped a six-game losing streak in the process.
“(Woll) has got a great demeanor about him, he’s extremely focused,” Auston Matthews said. “In a game like that was, where it’s up and down, especially overtime, where there’s a lot of chaos around each team’s net, he’s always extremely poised.”
Now, even with the win, the playoffs still feel out of reach for the Leafs. And so the five weeks before the trade deadline will likely be marked by the team shipping players out the door. Perhaps the most notable takeaway from Saturday’s win is that Woll can’t be one of those players. Woll remained constant through the game in a way few Leafs did, and he continued to stamp his place as a player vital to Toronto’s future.
“Woll made some big saves. He made a huge save late in the third period when they had an odd-man rush,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said. “For me, that’s a save that wins the hockey game.”
Overtime was frantic. As the Leafs’ turnovers added up, Woll needed to routinely sprawl out to make athletic saves. The Leafs were without Morgan Rielly, who left the game with what the Leafs are calling an upper-body injury.
For the Leafs, it was a difficult game to assess. A comeback win after six straight losses will boost morale in the Leafs dressing room, sure.
“It’s a good feeling in (the dressing room) right now after losing six in a row,” Berube said. “It’s tough, but they worked their way out of it tonight, in my opinion. They weren’t going to be denied tonight.”
Through two periods, the Leafs didn’t look all that deserving of the win. There were no penalties assessed because of physicality of any sort. Scott Laughton was assigned a cross-checking penalty at the end of the second period, after the final whistle had been blown. And so the first two periods stunk of two teams more concerned with getting to the Olympic break healthy and two teams resigned to their fate in the NHL’s basement.
For most of the night, the Leafs were only genuinely dangerous offensively when Matthews was on the ice. Matthews had the primary assist on Max Domi’s score-tying goal, led all Leafs forwards in ice time and fired a game-high seven shots on goal.
Matthews could have ended the game in overtime on a penalty shot, but Canucks goalie Nikita Tolopilo just narrowly stopped Matthews. Matthews got the last laugh with the shootout winner.
Nylander was a difference-maker in his first game back from injury in over two weeks, positively and negatively. Nylander looked rusty at times with some sloppy puck play near his own goal. He also created multiple rushes and scored during the shootout.
“(Nylander) skated extremely well, competed and created offense. Overall, hearing him on the bench talking, he brings leadership and things like that. I thought he elevated everybody on the team, to be honest with you,” Berube said.
Nick Robertson continues to elevate his own game this season. His craftiness and poise with the puck led to a primary assist on Nicolas Roy’s second-period, score-tying goal. More and more, Robertson, like Woll, looks like a player who can make an impact with the Leafs during a roster retool.
“He’s playing with confidence, he’s playing really good lately,” Roy said of Robertson. “If you’re open, he’s going to find you. He’s a really good skater, and he’s making plays all over.”
Still, a lot of the aforementioned positives came in the third period and overtime. A full 60-minute win this was not. They will get 2 points but still needed a shootout to beat the NHL’s last-place team, one that looks happy to be furnishing the league’s basement in the hope of landing possible first pick Gavin McKenna this summer.
The Leafs win ended up feeling less like the start of a turnaround and more like a reminder that who the Leafs have been from mid-January onwards is who the Leafs truly are: not one of the NHL’s most dire teams, but in the murky waters just above the bottom.
That’s why the Leafs will likely be sellers at the trade deadline. Wins Saturday from the Ottawa Senators, the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Washington Capitals mean there are still four teams standing between the Leafs and the final wild-card spot.
And so with the new Leafs reality for the remainder of the season clear, wins will showcase two things: pride, the bare minimum for any Leafs team, and which players can be part of the solution in Toronto long-term.
Over the eight Leafs games between now and the March 6 NHL trade deadline, trade chatter is going to intensify around a number of Leafs, UFAs and otherwise. Bobby McMann, Scott Laughton, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Troy Stecher figure to be prominent parts of the discussion. So, too, will the Leafs’ three goalies. The Leafs have the luxury of having three NHL goalies in their organization. They also have an evolving and intriguing goalie prospect in Artur Akhtyamov in his second AHL season. Any NHL team that needs to shore things up in the blue paint in the playoffs and beyond might make Brad Treliving one of their first calls.
How Treliving handles all of the calls, but particularly the ones about goaltending, will be the most dominant storyline of the remainder of the Leafs season.
Saturday’s game proved Woll has high-end capabilities, that he can rebound after a tough stretch. Woll had lost his previous five outings. Yet he can still keep the Leafs in a game. That’s valuable enough that Woll should be off the table in trade discussions. Woll is up to a .909 save percentage on the season. That number would tie his career high.
Big picture, perhaps Saturday’s game was a reminder that if the Leafs hope to actually get back to the postseason, Woll could be one of a handful of Leafs to help get them there.