The Toronto Maple Leafs will try to reverse their disturbing trend of squandering two-goal leads when they host the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night.
The Maple Leafs twice had two-goal leads Friday night in their 6-5 road loss in overtime to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Toronto scored the first two goals Wednesday in a 4-2 home loss to the Ottawa Senators.
Struggling goaltender Ilya Samsonov allowed six goals on 21 shots at Columbus.
“We made bad mistakes at bad times (and) you can’t make those the way Sammy is going through (problems) right now,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We scored five. We should win that game every time.”
The Hurricanes were idle on Friday, one day after recording a 5-3 win over the visiting Montreal Canadiens.
Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs dropped to 1-3-1 in their past five games.
Toronto welcomed back defenseman Mark Giordano (broken finger) on Friday. He had not played since Nov. 28.
His return should help Toronto in the Atlantic Division race, which is closer than last season when the Boston Bruins won in a runaway.
“Last year, the division was sort of out of reach right from the start of the season really,” Giordano said. “Now it just seems like everyone’s sort of still in it tight, and that’s why it’s really important to get on some nice runs if we can and avoid obviously losing a bunch of games in a row.”
Giordano played 14:49 on Friday and registered two shots on goal.
Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews and William Nylander each had a goal and an assist for Toronto. Defenseman Morgan Rielly added three assists.
Martin Jones is expected to get the start in goal on Saturday against Carolina, which is 3-1-1 in its past five games.
Andrei Svechnikov scored three goals and Sebastian Aho added four assists in the Hurricanes’ 5-3 win over Montreal at Raleigh, N.C., on Thursday.
Aho has recorded four points in two consecutive games. He had a goal and three assists in Carolina’s 5-2 road victory over the Nashville Predators on Wednesday.
“I don’t even know my stats, where they’re at, but (Thursday) they felt good,” Aho said.
Aho is the first player in franchise history to record four-point games on consecutive days and the first NHL player to do it since Jeremy Roenick of the then-Phoenix Coyotes on Nov. 25-26, 1999.
Against the Canadiens, Jesper Fast scored twice, defenseman Brent Burns had three assists and Antti Raanta made 18 saves in his return from Chicago of the American Hockey League.
“(Raanta) didn’t have a ton of work, but it was good to get him back in here and get him hopefully feeling good about the way things went,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said.
Raanta, who won for the first time since Nov. 22, was recalled Tuesday.
Svechnikov entered the game with three goals in 20 games this season.
“We talk about it all the time, he’s got to get on the score sheet for us to be the team we need to be,” Brind’Amour said. “And he’s a dominant player, and to do that, you’ve got to score. He does other things, obviously, but tonight was the big difference.”
Fast’s goals were his first since Nov. 22.
“I’ve been waiting for those a little bit this year,” Fast said. “They haven’t come easy so far, so of course it was a good feeling to get two goals today and hopefully I can ride the wave a little bit here.”
–Field Level Media
