- Both Canadian teams suffered losses in their first official NHL matches.
- The Columbus Blue Jackets defeated Toronto Maple Leafs 2-0.
- Meanwhile, Minnesota Wild was better than Vancouver Canucks, 3-0.
Maple Leafs Pale as Columbus Takes the Lead in Series
After a tough and fierce fight, Toronto Maple Leafs lost against Columbus in the East qualifying series. The Canadian team allowed two goals in the last period and dropped a very important match.
It seems that the time of the goal was crucial, as Blue Jackets netted 65 seconds after the start of that final frame. Cam Atkinson beat Frederik Andersen to give his team what eventually turned out to be a decisive lead in this contest.
“I saw him coming on the wing. His initial release looked to be a little bit higher, and I reacted up, and I made a little mistake,” said Andersen blaming himself for the loss. “That cost us a goal and, eventually, the game. It’s unfortunate.”
That was a morale-killer for the Maple Leafs, who then tried to do their best in order to score and level the result, but in the end, there was no reward for Sheldon Keefe’s boys. Furthermore, the Blue Jackets added one more goal as they used the fact that Toronto played without a goalie in the last minutes. Alexander Wennberg was the scorer.
This was only the second time since the start of the campaign that the Maple Leafs couldn’t score.
The next game between the 8th and the 9th seed in the East is set for this Tuesday at 4 pm ET. The first team to reach three wins will proceed to the playoffs as the last seeded team.
Minnesota Wild Routine Against Vancouver Canucks
Wild beat Canucks scoring one goal in each period, to reach the lead in the Western Conference qualifying series. The result was 3-0 for the players from Minnesota, who displayed excellent performance.
Meanwhile, Vancouver was struggling throughout the entire time, and it seems that the Canucks were nervous. The best evidence for that is their 27 minutes in penalties, while on the other side, Wild had just 11.
And not just that, two of the goals they conceded came after power plays. Vancouver goalie, Jacob Markstrom had 27 saves, but he blamed himself for the loss, as he believes that two goals Wild scored came after his poor reactions.
“And me personally, not the start as well — letting in those two goals. You want them back. Their goalie didn’t do any mistakes tonight, so we lost the game.”
Minnesota’s goalie Alex Stalock had 28 saves, shutting down the Canucks. Kevin Fiala scored the opener early on, at 2:50 of the opening frame. That pretty much decided the course of the game and made Vancouver’s players very nervous.
Jared Spurgeon netted two goals after that, with the note that he also assisted Fiala on his score. One was at 10:24 of the second, and the third 47 seconds before the end, when Canucks played with an empty net.
The next game between these two sides is set for Tuesday 10:45 pm ET.
