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The Toronto Maple Leafs found offense from unusual places in a 3-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday, scoring twice short-handed, including Pierre Engvall’s game-winner with 4:42 left in regulation.
Ilya Mikheyev and Mitch Marner also scored, Petr Mrazek made 20 saves in his first start since the Heritage Classic, and Toronto with the victory on “Next Gen” night moved into second place in the Atlantic Division past the idle Tampa Bay Lightning.
The game marked the debut of Mark Giordano and Colin Blackwell, and both played well in their first action. Blackwell played just 8:21 in the game, but saw time on both the second power play and penalty-killing unit. Giordano registered three hits and two blocked shots in 18:35 partnered with Timothy Liljegren and also played on the second power-play unit.
"I loved the way we played. It's an aggressive style and it's fun to play." Giordano said after the game. “For a young guy, (Liljegren), has got super poise with the puck, he makes really good decisions out there. You don't really get a sense of how complete his game is on TV. I was really impressed with positioning and all the little plays you make.”
Mrazek was not overworked in his return between the pipes, but appeared more steady and made key saves to keep the game close.
“I thought he looked really good. I thought he looked calm and confident. Tough game you know you only get a few shots in that first period, not a lot of work and the couple of shots he got were tough saves there.” Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Then all of a sudden in the second-period things turned and there were a lot more really good looks for them that I thought he looked good, that was a great step for him.”
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The victory marked another solid performance for defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin, who led the Leafs with four hits and was +2 partnered with Morgan Rielly in just under 17 minutes of ice time. Toronto has to be pleased by the steadiness of the big Russian since his acquisition from Arizona on February 11, and his play is reminiscent of former Leaf Roman Polak, who also wore #46.
"I think that's a good comparison. I didn't put that together. (Lyubushkin is a) big guy who plays really hard. enjoys that aspect of the game, being physical stuff. I think if you watch a video, they definitely probably have a couple things in common.” Rielly said.
The 27-year-old makes $1.35 million and is slated to be an unrestricted free agent this summer, but it would not be surprising to see GM Kyle Dubas be proactive and get Lyubushkin signed to a multi-year extension. A possible comparable deal could be the three-year, $4.5 million contract ($1.5 million AAV) that Dallas signed Jani Hakanpaa to last summer.
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