Eat Sleep Leafs

61 shots in a loss didn’t seem all that unusual in a Leafs season that’s brought plenty of the unexpected.

 

It’s been that kind of year in Toronto.

 

On Monday, it was the surprising effort of Dwayne Roloson and his career-high 58 saves in a 4-3 Islanders overtime victory.

"[Roloson] was unbelievable," said Ron Wilson following the game. "He was a little lucky at times, but he played great.”

The Leafs attempted 116 shots on the night, hitting the net 61 times and scoring just three times.

Phil Kessel tried 12 himself.

“I don’t even know what to say after a game like that,” said a befuddled Kessel afterwards.

“Sixty shots.”

“It was unbelievable. And you know again, we didn’t win. We’ve gotta bury one more puck there. It’s unfortunate.”

Hard to argue again with the effort, but as has been the case so often this season, the Leafs did just enough to fall short.

“What can you say?” said Ron Wilson. “They hung around long enough and got a break. We made a bad play in our end and we ended up losing the game, but I can’t fault the effort of our players.”

The Leafs did many things well; they outplayed the Islanders, they outworked the Islanders, and clearly they outshot the Islanders.

But again a few areas remained lacking. Despite getting 61 shots the Leafs scored just three goals. The power-play failed to connect in six opportunities including three times in the first period. The goaltending wasn't strong enough. And the defense errored in communication on Josh Bailey's game-winner.

It's true that on many occasions this year, the Leafs have been the better team, but it’s been one thing or another in each game that's added another tick to the loss column.

To their credit though they continue to fight.

Down 3-0 and outshooting the Islanders by a landslide, it would have been easy to mail it in.

 

And yet they kept going.

“When it started getting up past forty shots, you figure something’s going to start going in here,” said Ian White. “We keep shooting it, keep shooting it and finally we got a few by him.”

White was on the ice for Bailey’s overtime winner, as he and Tomas Kaberle appeared to get their signals crossed on the final play with White chipping the puck to an unaware Kaberle, who ceded the puck to the Isles player. A couple seconds later, the puck was in the net and the Islanders had won.

It’s been that kind of season.

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Vesa Toskala had to pull himself from Monday’s game late in the second period, after he tweaked his groin following the Islanders second goal.

He looked notably sullen and dejected afterwards.

“Didn’t feel too good,” Toskala said of the injury. “I’ve been feeling great and made some good saves today. Just a little tweak and hopefully it doesn’t take too long.”

Yet another bad break for Toskala. He was fighting back to form in the last three weeks, with his performance against the Capitals on Saturday registering as the high point. Another injury seems on par with a rough stay in Toronto for the Finnish netminder.

 

The Leafs will recall Joey MacDonald from the Marlies for Tuesday's practice.

 

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John Mitchell also left Monday's game with a knee injury, one that Wilson said would leave the Waterloo native out a while. The extent of the injury though was immediately known.

-J.Siegel
Follow me on Twitter: jonas640