Toronto Maple Leafs centre John Tavares (91) tries to tip the puck past Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Joonas Korpisalo (70) as Blue Jackets defenceman Dean Kukan (46) look on during second period NHL Eastern Conference Stanley Cup playoff action in Toronto, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2020.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
The Maple Leafs returned to action for the first time in 145 days on Sunday not with a roar but a thud in the first game of their best-of-five playoff qualifying series with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Cam Atkinson, a 5-foot-8 winger, scored the first goal with 18:55 remaining in the third period on a wrist shot from the right side of the net that eluded Toronto goalie Frederik Andersen on an otherwise stellar night. Alexander Wennberg scored an empty-netter with 19 seconds left as the Jackets held on to win 2-0.
Toronto joins Edmonton as a loser in its debut as a hub city in this odd season derailed by the COVID-19 epidemic. The Oilers lost 6-4 Saturday to the Chicago Blackhawks in a disappointing appearance.
“It is imperative that you play well in the first game of a best of five,” Sheldon Keefe, the Maple Leafs coach, said. “If you lose the first one, you don’t necessarily lose the series, but it certainly puts you at a disadvantage.”
The teams will play again on Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena, the host site for 12 squads from the NHL’s Eastern Conference. Games are being played without fans. The only spectators on hand were employees of both teams, league officials and a smaller-than-usual gathering of journalists.
Toronto’s logo at centre ice was replaced by a Stanley Cup. Participants on both sides sported playoff beards but had scant few black eyes or bruises.
Toronto last played on March 10, two days before the regular season was suspended due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. In a nod to this peculiar postseason, the Maple Leafs face an opponent in the play-in round that they have not seen since Oct. 21.
The winner of the series advances to the first round of the Stanley Cup. Toronto is now at risk of not reaching it, after losing in the first round in each of the last three years.
“We expected it to be hard,” Keefe said. “We expected it to be uncomfortable. We’ll have to find a better way and go from there.”
The last time the Maple Leafs won a playoff series was in 2004 against the Ottawa Senators. Although it has won 11 Stanley Cups, the last was in 1967. That ranks as the league’s longest existing drought between championships.
Toronto was wary of Columbus, with whom it split two games 17 days apart in the first month of the season. The Blue Jackets stunned Tampa Bay with a four-game sweep in the first round in 2019 after the Lightning had won the President’s Trophy with the NHL’s best record. Columbus is one of only six teams to earn a postseason appearance in each of the last four years, and is not intimidated when it plays in Toronto. The Blue Jackets have won 10 of the last 13 games on the Maple Leafs home ice.
Despite Toronto having a high-priced lineup laden with superstars, the first-round combatants finished tied in the Eastern Conference standings, each with 81 points. The Maple Leafs are seeded eighth among 12 teams from the East, and Columbus is ninth.
Andersen made his 49th postseason start in the net for Toronto, while Columbus countered with Joonas Korpisalo, the latter in his first playoff game. Although he has less experience, the 26-year-old Finn was up to the task.
He stopped a hard shot from in-close by Nick Robertson a little over two minutes into the game, made another terrific save against Ilya Mikheyev and snagged a hard wrist shot by Auston Matthews with 3:05 remaining before intermission.
Andersen, who went 29-13-7 and was fourth in the league in saves this season, was equally as good. He turned away Blue Jackets centre Pierre-Luc Dubois on a hard charge to the crease and stopped a one-timer by Columbus defenceman Zach Werenski, who led NHL blueliners in goals with 20 in 63 games in the regular season. The Blue Jackets are stingy on defence but plodding on offence and, as expected, the first period was tightly played. Korpisalo ended with 28 saves; Anderson had 33.
Columbus began the second on the power play but was unable to score. The Maple Leafs then got a man advantage, but Korpisalo sprawled to stymie Matthews when he tried to tuck one past him.
Back and forth the goalies went, with Andersen denying Eric Robertson on a break-away midway through the period and snatching a puck fired at him by Alex Texier from directly in front with 4:20 left. The shots were 22-19 Columbus at the second intermission with nobody able to score.
Robertson, the team’s prized prospect, made his NHL debut as the third line left wing. A first-round pick in the 2019 entry draft, he became the first 18-year-old to make his debut during postseason since Jarome Iginla did it for the Calgary Flames on April 21, 1996.
Toronto hopes to get more out of its fleet defenceman Tyson Barrie, who was touted as a top offensive blueliner. In truth, his numbers were not all that bad – 39 points in 70 games – but his five goals were far fewer than expected. He acknowledged that it took longer than anticipated after coming from Colorado and looked forward to getting a new start on Sunday.
Korpisalo went 19-12-5 this season with a .911 save percentage. He started both games against Toronto early in the year and allowed seven goals against them on 60 shots.
Of the six qualifying games completed before the Maple Leafs took the ice, lower-seeded teams had won three.
Columbus plays a tough, gritty game and frustrated Toronto all night.
“This is the type of game we expected,” Morgan Rielly, the Maple Leafs defenceman, said. “We talked about it before hand. I expect more of these moving forward and that we can be better.”
John Tavares went 15-4 in faceoffs for the Maple Leafs, and Matthews went 11-6.
Seth Jones, an elite defenceman who missed a sizable portion of the regular season due to injury, played hard and had seven hits for Columbus.
“They played playoff hockey, and that is what this is,” Toronto forward Zach Hyman said. “I thought we had our chances. We just didn’t capitalize. We’ll learn from this and come back strong.”