Minnesota Wild take early lead and beat Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Minnesota Wild take early lead and beat Toronto Maple Leafs  3-2. Here is the game summary.

GAME SUMMARY         |           EVENT SUMMARY        |           FACEOFF SUMMARY

ON THE SCORESHEET

Ben Smith got the Maple Leafs on the board with his second goal of the season at 16:50 of the first period. The Maple Leafs have scored 28 first period goals in 25 games.

Tyler Bozak scored an unassisted goal at 10:54 of the second period. Of Bozak’s six goals this season, five have been scored at even-strength.

Nazem Kadri registered the primary assist on Smith’s first period goal. The Maple Leafs are 7-5-2 this season when Kadri records a point.

Morgan Rielly picked up his 13^th assist of the season in the first period, which leads the Maple Leafs.

SHOTS FIRED

The Maple Leafs outshot the Wild by a 37-20 margin.

Toronto out-attempted Minnesota by 87-41.

Toronto had a 67-38 edge in shot attempts at 5-on-5.

The Maple Leafs outshot the Wild 10-8 in the first period, 10-9 in the second period and 17-3 in the third period.

Jake Gardiner led all skaters with 6 shots and 13 shot attempts.

HOME AGAIN

The Maple Leafs are 8-4-0 on home ice.

Toronto’s record is 8-9-0-1 in 18 games against the Wild and 6-4-0-0 in 10 games played in Toronto.

The Maple Leafs head to Boston for the first leg of a back-to-back on Saturday, Dec. 10 before returning home for a game against Colorado on Sunday, Dec. 11.

OF NOTE…

Linesman Steve Miller left tonight’s game to be evaluated by medical personnel after being hit by a puck in the third period. The contest continued with three officials.

Toronto allowed 20 shots in tonight’s game, which is the fewest allowed by the team through three periods this season.

The three shots registered by Minnesota in the third period are the fewest allowed by the Maple Leafs in a single period this season.

Toronto’s line of Matt Martin, Ben Smith and Nikita Soshnikov started all their 5-on-5 shifts in the defensive or neutral zone.

Four Maple Leafs (Marner, Martin, Matthews, Rielly) registered 2 blocked shots.

Frederik Andersen made 17 saves in the loss.

Tyler Bozak won a team-high 10 faceoffs.

Jake Gardiner and Tyler Bozak each had 2 takeaways.

Jake Gardiner led the Maple Leafs in Time on Ice (23:54).

Nazem Kadri won 75 percent (6 won, 2 lost) of his faceoffs when matched up against Mikko Koivu and 69 percent of his total faceoffs (9 won, 4 lost) in tonight’s game.

Leo Komarov led the Maple Leafs in hits (6).

Morgan Rielly led all skaters with 30 shifts.

James van Riemsdyk led all skaters with a shot-attempt percentage of 81.5% at 5-on-5.

UPCOMING GAMES:

Saturday, Dec. 10 at Boston Bruins, 7:00 p.m. (Hockey Night in Canada, TSN 1050)

Sunday, Dec. 11 vs. Colorado Avalanche, 7:00 p.m. (Sportsnet, FAN 590)

Tuesday, Dec. 13 vs. San Jose Sharks, 7:30 p.m. (TSN 4, TSN 1050)

Thursday, Dec. 15 vs. Arizona Coyotes, 7:30 p.m. (Sportsnet Ontario, FAN 590)

Saturday, Dec. 17 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins, 7:00 p.m. (Hockey Night in Canada, FAN 590)

POSTGAME QUOTES

MIKE BABCOCK POSTGAME: DECEMBER 7, 2016

On disappointment in tonight’s result:

You feel like that for sure, you are where you are. We’re set up to win a segment here tonight and we didn’t do that. When you look at our game we did lots of good things – we worked hard, we created lots – but we also gave up four chances from below our goal line and you can’t give those up, those are freebies. Any way you look at it you have to crawl back in. We’d like to have 30 points right now after five segments – 30 points and we’ve got 25. If you keep doing what you’re doing that means you end up with around 82 points and you miss. That’s not our priority or what we plan on doing so we’re going to have to fix that. We start a new segment in Boston right away here. We’re going to take a day off tomorrow and we’re going to go back to work. I still feel we have lots of room to improve to get better.

On breakdowns early in the game:

I thought we started real good. I thought we dominated the first couple of shifts. I thought the puck went in for them, but we made big mistakes on their goals. I still would have liked a couple of stops there. In saying that, I thought we pushed for lots of the game but it’s one thing when you push when you’re behind. You’ve got to push when the game starts and start on time. Even though we started on time I thought we had a lull there for sure. Then on some of our opportunities you’ve got to bury them. You have to give their team credit and their goaltender credit, they did a good job.

On defensive miscues:

You can’t have guys behind the net. It’s great that you’re spreading out on a breakout when you’ve got a clean puck, that means you’re under control. But, when it’s a 50-50 puck, you can’t be leaving each other. For whatever reason – we haven’t had one of those since I can’t even remember. Tonight Andersen made saves on two of those two and so that’s the way I look at it. There were four of those plays and they can’t happen.

On Marincin being held out due to illness:

Yeah, we expected him to play, he just wasn’t able to. We’ve had lots of guys sick.

On how he views the team through 25 games:

We’ve done lots of good things, really good things, but I’m no different than you people or the fans. I get greedy, I want to be better. We want to be better. We look like we’ve got a bunch of kids that know — they’re good little players, we’ve got to find a way to win every night. We’ve got to be better, that’s the reality of the situation. We’ve hung in there just fine but we need to have a segment coming up. That’s all there is to it.

On if he likes the attitude of the young players:

Yeah, they’re good. They work hard, they compete hard. I think Bozak and van Riemsdyk have been fantastic here of late, really good. [Kadri] has played good for us. We’ve done lots of good things. We’ve just got to be better.

On moving Nylander up the lineup mid-game as an effort to generate offence:

Yeah and the reality is for him to play centre in the League, he’s going to have to get way better defensively and more competitive. It’s just a situation where we were behind and he’s a guy who can shoot the puck in the net. [Soshnikov] did nothing wrong, Sosh plays hard.

TYLER BOZAK POSTGAME: DECEMBER 7, 2016

On tonight’s game:

A couple of breakdowns, a couple of turnovers. They’re a very good team in the neutral zone and prey on your turnovers and wait for you to turn the puck over. I think we did that a little bit too much early in the game. We gave ourselves a chance and came hard in the third and had our opportunities and weren’t able to bury it.

On not getting a point despite offensive chances to tie the game:

We can’t have those breakdowns we had where we give up goals. Freddy [Andersen] made some huge saves for us and we had a lot of opportunities to score, but we didn’t bury it. Back to the drawing board. We’ve got to find ways to win those games where we outplay teams and not get behind like that.

On his second period goal:

Just kind of got a loose puck and their d-man was flat-footed. I was lucky enough to get around and put it in.

On the game as a lesson:

It’s hard when you get down, especially on a team like that who play very well defensively and have great goaltending. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot there and got behind the 8-ball. I thought we had a strong effort trying to come back.

NAZEM KADRI POSTGAME: DECEMBER 7, 2016

On preventing small breakdowns over 60 minutes:

Just try to manage the puck a little bit better. I think most of their opportunities came off some turnovers that we were forcing early on. I think we probably had four or five turnovers in the first 10 minutes. Obviously that can’t happen. After that we started to manage the game a lot better and started executing and I think it showed.

On frustration over chances not going in the net late:

It seemed like the whole third period was like that, really. Tons of grade-A opportunities and lots on the power play. He’s a good goaltender. That’s what good teams do, they have timely saves and they definitely got that tonight.

On the lesson from tonight’s game:

Just being able to manage. Error is not too big in this league. If you make a couple of mistakes, that can be the turning point in the game. Just trying to be able to manage that puck and understand that we’ve got to be ready from the get-go.

AUSTON MATTHEWS POSTGAME: DECEMBER 7, 2016

On tonight’s game:

I thought we controlled a lot of the play, especially when we had the puck down low when we were cycling and kind of moving around. We were very hard to defend against and that’s a big part of our game is being able to move the puck down low. I thought we did a pretty good job of that at times. There were times when we would turn it over and they’re a very good rush team. They’d come back and create these opportunities and they were able to cash in a couple on us. We dug ourselves a bit of a hole but we battled back and I think we tried all the time.

On Devan Dubnyk:

He’s so big and covers the whole net. The biggest thing is just getting bodies in front and screens, rebounds, making sure you have that guy there to just be in his eyes and make it difficult on him.

On the best opportunities to score tonight:

I thought we had a few. I thought when we had the puck down low and cycled it, kind of spun off guys, we were able to take it to the net and create odd-man opportunities. I think that’s when we were at our best.

On the team’s effort in the third as a positive:

Yeah, definitely. We need to do a better job getting pucks through at 6-on-5. We know they’re going to be diving around, blocking shots so that’s a key for us to make sure those shots get through, especially against a goalie like this, and that we’ve got guys in front of him making it difficult.