They blew another lead, and it wasn’t pretty, but somehow some way, the Leafs found a way to squeak out a win in their first ever trip to Utah.
Considering everything that’s been going on over the past few days, it was only fitting that Mitch Marner did the honours in the shootout.
At any rate, we kicked off the Tuesday edition of Leafs Morning Take by giving our initial thoughts on the 4-3 shootout win to finish off the road trip. After that, we weighed in on Aaron Ekblad PED suspension. The Panthers blue liner will be sidelined for 20 games – 18 regular season and two playoff games for violating the league’s policy on performance enhancing drugs. And that’s big for the Leafs as they still have three regular season contests against Florida remaining.
Meantime, thanks to Tim Hortons, we recapped the win in Utah. As mentioned, for the most part, the Leafs looked lethargic and tired. In fact, they really seemed to run out of juice midway through the game. It was 3-0, but in short order, Utah responded with a three-goal flurry in 3:57. Indisputably, Joseph Woll was a massive reason why Toronto came away with the two points. He was awesome in overtime and the shootout. Furthermore, Rosey broke down the Benoit/Kesselring fight, and of course, Benoit’s Kevin Bieksa-esque SUPERMAN punch. That was interesting.
After that, we also discussed the depth scoring. Both Calle Jarnkrok and Benoit scored their first goals in over 400 days. You love to see that. Lastly, we dished on the atrocious officiating as well as Toronto’s new look fourth line with Lorentz, Kampf, and Holmberg. Additionally, we want to see a little bit more from Bobby McMann, who’s currently mired in a 10-game goalless drought.
The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta will be filling in for Jay Rosehill on the Wednesday edition of Leafs Morning Take. Join us at 11 AM ET as we discuss the latest from Leafs practice. Craig Berube and company have a huge one at home tomorrow night against the Florida Panthers.
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