Toronto comes to Columbus every three or so years. Many Blue
Jackets fans hope they never come back.
The Maple Leafs scored three second-period goals and played
stellar defense to beat the Blue Jackets 4-2 in front of 17,303 at
Nationwide Arena Friday night.
Bryan McCabe, Kyle Wellwood, Michael Peca and John Pohl scored
for the Maple Leafs, who won for the first time in Columbus.
Manny Malhotra and Alexander Svitov scored for the Jackets, who
have dropped two straight after winning their previous two games.
"It comes back to the same old thing, there was no battle
tonight," Jackets coach Gerard Gallant said. "We’re losing
one-on-one battles and not competing hard enough."
Because of a quirk in the NHL schedule, the Jackets were playing
their first game in six days and second game in the last 11 days.
The team had jump in the first period and had several good looks on
goal. In the second, things went south rather quickly for the
Jackets.
McCabe hit a slap shot from the left circle off a centering pass
from Mats Sundin at 9:11 to give Toronto a 1-0 lead.
Columbus tied the game minutes later when Malhotra tapped in a
Jason Chimera shot into an empty net. Chimera took a pass from
Malhotra and skated around the goal before putting the shot on goal.
"Not a lot of things went well for us," Malhotra said. "The
biggest was not finishing our opportunities."
Added Chimera, "Toronto turned the tide in the second half, and
it kind of went down from there."
Toronto put the game away in a 32-second span later in the
period. Wellwood slid the puck under the leg pad of Pascal Leclaire
on a weak wrist shot on the power play. As that goal was being
announced, Peca tipped in a Alex Steen shot sending out the boo
birds at Nationwide Arena.
Columbus started the second period with three power play chances,
but the Leafs penalty kill was stellar. Every time the Jackets got
the puck into the zone, a Toronto player was there to poke it back
down the ice.
"The penalty kill was hot all night and I thought that fourth
line won us the game," Leafs coach Paul Maurice said. "We blocked a
lot and knocked a lot down. We did a really nice job in the neutral
zone taking away their speed."
Pohl scored his first of the season when he tapped in a log
rebound off a Ben Ondrus shot at 13:03 of the third period.
Svitov added a goal with 12.1 seconds remaining in the game after
many of the Jackets faithful were already headed back to the
suburbs.
Toronto outshot Columbus 27-25. Leclaire had 23 saves, while
Andrew Raycroft also stopped 23 shots.
Columbus travels to Pittsburgh Saturday then returns home to host
San Jose Monday.
