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TORONTO — After 186 minutes and 23 seconds of action, Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Tomas Kaberle picked a perfect time to score his club's first power-play goal of the young NHL season.
Kaberle slapped in a pass from Leafs captain Mats Sundin at the 3:26 mark of overtime to end the wonderment about when Toronto was going to win its first game. Kaberle's first of the season enabled the Leafs to take a 4-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in another close, but wild and wacky affair between the long-time rivals.
"Worst game we played, we wind up winning it, that's hockey," said Sundin, who with his three-assist outing is now only a point shy from tying Darryl Sittler for the most career points as a Leaf at 916.
"For the first half of this game, we certainly had the worst game we played, the second half we played really well so it was nice to get something."
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- Montreal Canadiens
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Nik Antropov
- Francis Bouillon
- Mathieu Dandenault
- Mikhail Grabovski
- Cristobal Huet
- Tomas Kaberle
- Andrei Kostitsyn
- Andrei Markov
- Alexei Ponikarovsky
- Anton Stralman
- Mark Streit
- Mats Sundin
- Vesa Toskala
- Darcy Tucker
- Ian White
The Leafs had gone 0 for 17 on the power play to begin the season, and to boot they yielded a shorthanded Montreal goal in the second period. But on the 18th man-advantage situation, with Montreal defenceman Francis Bouillon off for holding, the Leafs finally shook out of their power-play doldrums.
"We gave one back on our power play," Toronto coach Paul Maurice said. "It's very difficult to be good and quick when you're slow and tired.
"But I'm glad our power play scored a goal, so now I don't have to answer the question of what's wrong with our power play, we can tell people look we scored a power-play goal."
The Canadiens blew a 3-1 lead that they built up after goals from Andrei Markov and Andrei Kostitsyn in the second period. But then they started fumbling around with the puck before the crowd of 19,415.
First, Montreal goalie Cristobal Huet gave away the puck to Sundin behind his own goal for the first Alexei Ponikarovsky goal and early in the third period Markov could not get his clearing attempt past the Leafs captain for Ponikarovsky's second goal.
"We had a little trouble bringing it out of our own end there," said Montreal forward Chris Higgins, who performed some magic in setting up Markov for the Canadiens shorthanded goal.
"We have a lot of difficulty playing here [at Air Canada Centre]. But give them credit, they played well."
The Canadiens bounced back after the Leafs tied the game early in the third period, but their own power-play unit that struck for three goals in the Habs season opening 3-2 OT victory in Carolina against the Hurricanes on Wednesday let them down on Saturday. They failed to score with the man advantage late in the third period and again in overtime to go 0 for 6 on the evening with the man advantage.
They came close to scoring on the power play, however. Alex Kovalev wired a shot off the crossbar in OT and Toronto goalie Vesa Toskala, who enjoyed a strong 25-save performance, was in position to stone Montreal's Mark Streit from in close a short time later.
The Leafs and Canadiens clashed for the 683rd time in the regular season. Last year, four of the eight games between the long-time rivals were decided by a shootout and another two matches by one goal.
Montreal was first on the scoreboard because Toskala was baffled by Patrice Brisebois's shot that caromed off the backboards. Toskala could not find the ricochet and the puck eventually squirted to Mathieu Dandenault for an easy goal.
The Leafs, however, needed only 1:51 to draw even. The Canadians line of Kovalev, Mikhail Grabovski and Kostitsyn were caught running around their own end. The puck found its way back to Toronto defenceman Ian White and he beat Huet with a high shot to the far top corner.
The Leafs lost Darcy Tucker for half of the second period when he crashed feet first into the boards behind the Montreal goal and appeared to hurt his right leg. After sitting on the bench briefly, he visited the dressing room for repairs, but returned for the last 8 ½ minutes of the second period.
The Canadiens' third goal prompted Toronto coach Paul Maurice to change up his lines. Ponikarovsky scored while back with Mats Sundin and Nik Antropov. The threesome played the end of the 2005-06 season together and most of last year.
Note: Leafs D Anton Stralman was sent down to play for the AHL Toronto Marlies and was impressive in the Marlies 4-1 season-opening victory over the Rochester Americans.
