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TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs continued to demonstrate a belief that they can get away with partial efforts this season.
For the fourth time in 22 games, they entered the final period with a lead, only to stop playing and watch the opposition storm back to pinch a victory.
This time the Boston Bruins did the pilfering. They scored three times in the final 10 minutes 8 seconds to nab a 4-2 win before 19,441 disappointed fans at the Air Canada Centre last night.
The Leafs, who led 2-0 late in the second period, let their home record dip to 4-5-1 as their frustration continues to mount. The patchy NHL club is now 8-9-5 overall.
Boston's Phil Kessel celebrates his second-period goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Adrian Wyld/CP)
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- Anaheim Ducks
- Boston Bruins
- New York Islanders
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- P.J. Axelsson
- Manny Fernandez
- Tomas Kaberle
- Phil Kessel
- Chuck Kobasew
- Bryan McCabe
- Glen Metropolit
- Tuukka Rask
- Andrew Raycroft
- Marc Savard
- Teemu Selanne
- Mats Sundin
- Tim Thomas
- Vesa Toskala
- Darcy Tucker
Toronto was coming off its best outing of the season last Saturday, when it celebrated a 3-0 victory at home over the speedy and skilled Ottawa Senators. But the team was unable to build any momentum from that impressive showing.
"I don't know what to say about this team," said captain Mats Sundin, one of only a handful of Leafs available to talk to reporters after the game. "You try to build an identity. You have a good hard-work effort on Saturday night and then we have a game like tonight where we were up two goals and then let Boston back in the game, and it was a very important game for us. It's very disappointing."
The Leafs built the two-goal lead on a pair of fluky goals from Bryan McCabe and Sundin against a 20-year-old goalie making his NHL debut. Former Leafs prospect Tuukka Rask, who was traded in June of 2006 for Andrew Raycroft, gave up his first goal in the opening period when a McCabe pass intended for Alexei Ponikarovsky bounded off the skate of Boston forward Glen Metropolit.
Sundin scored his club-leading 11th goal late in the second period with a slap shot from just inside the Bruins blueline. The puck was on its edge and beat Rask on the stick side because it dipped at the last second.
The Bruins bounced back with a power-play goal in the final minute from Phil Kessel. McCabe's risky clearing attempt up the middle hit Chuck Kobasew in the shin pads and the fleet forward grabbed the loose puck and set up Kessel.
The Kessel goal ended the shutout streak of Toronto goalie Vesa Toskala at 141:47, the longest of his career.
Usually a goal in the final minute of a period is deflating, but the Leafs played a strong eight minutes or so to begin the third period. The tide, however, changed midway through the final 20 minutes, when Boston's line of Kessel, Peter Schaefer and Brandon Bochenski held the puck in the Toronto zone for an extended stretch of time.
Then P.J. Axelsson, Marc Savard and Glen Murray hopped over the boards to combine for a nifty three-way passing play that led to Axelsson's first goal of the season.
Kobasew scored the winner with 3:31 remaining, beating Toskala on the short side underneath his right arm with a wrist shot. Toskala said he should have had it and his coach Paul Maurice agreed.
"He's got to have the third one," said Maurice, whose club outshot Boston 32-25.
"I think we came out soft in the third, sat back and tried to protect the lead too much," Leafs forward Nik Antropov added.
Kobasew added an empty net goal for a three-point game.
Leafs defenceman Tomas Kaberle had two assists to reach the 300-career assist milestone, while Sundin scored his 534th career goal to pass Frank Mahovlich and sneak into 27th spot on the career list.
There was little action on the ice through the first two periods. Most of the excitement was high above the ice in the press box. At one point early in the second period, Anaheim Ducks general manager Brian Burke occupied a seat in the already crowded box of Leafs counterpart John Ferguson.
Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president and chief executive officer Richard Peddie already was sitting alongside Ferguson and his lieutenants. Burke, it turns out, was in town for a speaking engagement and decided to take in the Leafs-Bruins tilt.
