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The Toronto Maple Leafs finished off an arduous five-game road trip on a victorious note, playing efficiently defensively and cashing in on the power play in a 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators on Sunday. The second of back-to-back games was a departure from the spotty performance in a 5-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes in which the Leafs were stymied by rookie Pyotr Kochetkov and surrendered Sebastian Aho’s game-winning goal just 37 seconds after Auston Matthews tied the game.
John Tavares scored twice on the man advantage, and Alex Kerfoot added his second goal of the road trip for Toronto, but the story of the contest was goalie Joseph Woll, who made 23 saves in his third win of the season and kept the Preds off the scoreboard after they posted the first eight shots on goal in the opening minutes.
“(Nashville’s)game plan early on was to shoot the puck from everywhere. They even registered a shot from three feet below the goal line at one point.” Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game, “They were shooting from everywhere. It got Joey engaged in the game and inflated the shot clock a little bit.” I liked how our guys just stayed with it, recognizing it is a 60-minute game. Once we got through their forecheck, I thought we didn’t look back from there at five-on-five.
Toronto held on to a two-goal lead halfway into the third, but a bad decision by defenseman Justin Holl pinching in and forcing Tavares to take a penalty to prevent an odd-man break led to Nashville getting on the scoreboard on a deflection goal by Cody Glass. Keefe opted to take a timeout with 7:23 remaining in regulation.
“It is just trying to slow the play down a little bit in terms of momentum. You’re trying to do your best to manage that and get our guys refocused before going back out.” Keefe said. “We generated a penalty, and our power play went out and very calmly got us the third goal, which is ultimately the difference in the game. I really liked that piece.”
There was some concern late in the second period when Tavares bent over in pain after taking a cross-check from Nashville’s Mark Jankowski, but the Leafs captain returned for the third and scored the game-winner, giving Toronto three wins on the road over Ottawa, Florida, and Nashville.
With the win, Woll improves to 3-1-0, with a 2.03 GAA and .934 save %, which is building on his success with the AHL Marlies (16-2-1, 2.29 GAA, .930 save %), but is also inserting the 24-year-old into the Leafs goaltending picture for 2023-24. The Missouri native has been able to shake off injury issues in the first year of a three-year bridge deal, and this season can be moved freely up and down from the AHL due to waiver exemption, but that will not be the case next season.
At the absolute minimum, Woll appears ready to handle backup duties with the Leafs next season and his $775,000 salary would allow them to spend money to retain and re-sign other players instead of using up cap space on a second higher-priced goaltender.
The Leafs will next be in action on Wednesday against the Florida Panthers.
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With the victory over St. Cloud State on Saturday, Leafs prospect Matthew Knies and the University of Minnesota advanced to the Frozen Four in Tampa, FL to face Boston University on April 6. The winner will face the winner of Quinnipiac – Michigan on April 8.
If the Golden Gophers advance to the final, a potential signing of Knies to an entry-level contract immediately following the game would come with three games remaining in the Leafs season.
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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