Maple Leafs blow lead, fall to last-place San Jose Sharks in shootout
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The Maple Leafs suffered a severe Sharks bite on Monday night.
The San Jose Sharks, aka the worst team in the National Hockey League, beat the Leafs 3-2 in a shootout after erasing a 2-0 Toronto lead in the third period.
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Maple Leafs blow lead, fall to last-place San Jose Sharks in shootout Back to video
Fabian Zetterlund, the eighth shooter, scored the decisive goal at Scotiabank Arena when he beat Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz on the glove side.
The Leafs failed to score on a power play in overtime. In the final minutes, Stolarz stopped Jake Walman on a 2-on-1.
Down 2-0 entering the third, the Sharks tied the game at 10:10 when Tyler Toffoli deposited an Alexander Wennberg pass into an open Leafs net. Defencemen Simon Benoit and Oliver Ekman-Larsson had a rough go on the goal and Stolarz wasn’t in position either.
Jack Thompson scored San Jose’s goal at 2:23 of the third period when he scored on a rebound off the end boards.
The Leafs, who head out on a three-game trip to Vegas, Colorado and Utah, had their five-game winning streak snapped.
The Sharks ended an eight-game winless skid. They had not won since Jan. 27 against Pittsburgh.
The Leafs’ No. 1 power-play unit produced two goals in the second period to put Toronto up 2-0 heading into the third.
Matthew Knies had a hand in both.
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At 8:28, with Knies providing a screen in front of Sharks goalie Alexandar Georgiev, John Tavares deflected a Mitch Marner shot into the net for the Leafs’ first goal.
Knies scored at 19:55 when he fought off defenceman Marc-Edouard Vlasic in front of the net and jammed an Auston Matthews pass over the goal line.
It marked the eighth game this season that the Leafs scored at least two power-play goals. On one occasion, on Nov. 5 in a win against the Boston Bruins, they scored three with a man advantage.
Calle Jarnkrok played in his first game of the season — and 700th of his National Hockey League career — after he was activated from longterm injured reserve earlier in the day. Jarnkrok, who had groin/sports hernia surgery in November, skated on the Leafs’ fourth line with David Kampf and Connor Dewar and was his usual industrious self.
A couple of items of interest stood out in a first period that didn’t feature a goal.
Defenceman Timothy Liljegren, traded to the Sharks by the Leafs on Oct. 30, made his return and received a warm round of applause when he was recognized on the scoreboard during a TV timeout.
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