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Leafs surprise slumbering Stars with win before break, Valiev demoted |
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The Toronto Maple Leafs bucked conventional wisdom in their final game before the All-Star break, as the club put together an energetic effort in a 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center on Thursday.
The Leafs were playing the second of back-to-back games after a 3-2 overtime win over Chicago on Wednesday and arrived in Dallas early Thursday morning. The well-rested Stars have been charting a more positive course in the last month under Ken Hitchcock and they would be facing backup goalie Curtis McElhinney in his first start since December 20.
Nazem Kadri tallied twice, Zach Hyman and Auston Matthews scored singles and McElhinney made 39 saves i for Toronto, who after struggling through January have strung together three road victories in a row over Ottawa, Chicago and Dallas.
“I thought we skated good tonight, maybe as good as we've skated all year. All four lines were good and it was a big win for our team.” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said after the game. “Any time you win back-to-back, especially with the way Dallas has been playing – Dallas has been playing real good, [Ken Hitchcock] does a good job and you knew it was going to be a tight game.”
Dallas appeared to take the lethargic Leafs for granted by not taking advantage of opportunities early in the game and allowing Toronto to get their footing.
Kadri, who had just one goal in his last 20 games prior to Wednesday, scored a similar looking goal late in the first period, burying the puck past Dallas goalie Ben Bishop after a goalmouth pass from Mitch Marner.
After Hyman extended the Toronto lead early in the middle frame by going to the net and converting on a feed from William Nylander, Kadri scored perhaps the strangest goal of the 2017-18 season, as a centering pass on the power play deflected off of Stars forward Mattias Janmark’s skate 20 feet from the net and slid past Bishop.
"You know that's going to happen. You've just got to stay with it and be patient.” Kadri said. “My game hasn't really changed (from) 20 games ago to now. I feel like I've been playing some pretty solid hockey and eventually things are going to turn for you. It's a perfect example tonight.”
Other than Matthews, who will make his way to Tampa for the weekend’s All-Star festivities, the Leafs will be off until early next week.
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The Leafs have sent defenseman Rinat Valiev back to the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League. Valiev was called up last Monday after Morgan Rielly was placed on injured reserve and was the club's extra defenseman during Toronto's two-game Central Division road swing.
Rielly will be eligible to come off injured reserve on Monday and could be ready for the club’s next game against the New York Islanders on Wednesday.
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With exactly one month to go until the NHL Trade Deadline, there is a wide variety of opinion of what the Maple Leafs will do before February 26.
There continue to be indications that the club will attempt to address their need to improve the blueline that has been made more apparent with the injuries to Morgan Rielly and Nikita Zaitsev.
TSN’s Darren Dreger believes that the Leafs are looking for long-term solutions on defense, meaning a defenseman signed to a long-term contract or under control for multiple years. While that is the ideal situation, those acquisitions are costly and more likely to happen over the summer.
Blueliners available at the deadline will be rentals (Mike Green and Erik Gudbranson) or those with a year left on current deals (Niklas Hjalmarsson), but the price for them could be elevated based on the fervor of the trade market.
It appears to be more of a buyer’s market four weeks out, with as many as eight teams as legitimate sellers and more teams potentially willing to go that way if they fall further out of the playoff race in February.
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