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The Toronto Maple Leafs predictably appeared to be the less desperate club in their first game coming out of the All-Star break against the New York Islanders, the club immediately trailing them in the race for an Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Isles scored first, took advantage of careless Toronto mistakes and rode the excellent goaltending of Ilya Sorokin in a 3-2 victory at Scotiabank Arena on Monday.
Mitch Marner and John Tavares scored for Toronto during 4-on-4 and power play chances, but could not beat Sorokin at even strength, who made 34 saves for the Islanders, who moved to within four points of the Leafs with the regulation win.
“We played well enough to win the game, but we did just enough to lose. That is why you lose games.” Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game.
Mathew Barzal gave New York the lead midway through the first period on a rebound of a shot that clanked off the post on the short side past Ilya Samsonov. The Leafs tied the game early in the middle frame on Mitch Marner’s 21st of the season off an offensive zone faceoff, but Toronto surrendered the lead on a careless giveaway at the end of a power play as Cal Clutterbuck set up Kyle Maclean for a breakaway and his first NHL goal.
“That is peewee stuff,” Keefe said. “It has nothing to do with the season or anything like that. If you play on the power play in the NHL, they should not get behind you coming out of the penalty box.”
Toronto pressed for the tying for all of the third, nearly tying the game on an Auston Matthews chance that rang off both posts and the crossbar, but finally tying the game on Tavares 14th goal with 4:48 remaining, but (again predictably) former Leaf Pierre Engvall exacted a bit of revenge against his old club, cleaning up a Samsonov rebound with 2:02 left.
“The second and third goals are gifts. You can’t give gifts when the goalie is playing the way that he is at the other end.” Keefe said. “Goals are so hard to come by. You battle your way back to tie the game. You can’t do that — not if you want to win games.”
Toronto will have a chance to bounce back on Wednesday against the Dallas Stars, who play in Buffalo on Tuesday and will be playing the second of back-to-back games.
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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