Flames top Maple Leafs 4-3 despite scratching top scorers

The Maple Leafs were a team riddled with injuries, and reeling from the sudden trade of captain Dion Phaneuf, but they suddenly became a much greater threat yesterday after the surprise announcement that Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Lance Bouma would all be scratched from the game as discipline for arriving late to a team practice on Monday. It was a gamble by Bob Hartley, and he came out of it unscathed.

The game started steady as the teams traded chances about evenly, but half way through the first period Matt Stajan took a hooking penalty off the Leafs’ Byron Froese. While attempting to regroup in their own end The Leafs then gave up a turnover on a sloppy pass. Michael Frolik fired it up the ice to Markus Granlund, who buried the puck on a breakaway. It was his first goal in 20 games, and the Flames‘ second of the season.

However that goal didn’t nullify the Leafs power play, and a shot from near the blue line was tipped in past Jonas Hiller only one minute later.

Late in the first a line change goof by the Leafs resulted in them getting slapped with a too many men penalty. The Flames converted on the power play, getting a tip in of their own this time as Mikael Backlund deflected in a shot from Dougie Hamilton.

Backlund goal pic.twitter.com/hE5f0d4G94

— Stephanie (@myregularface) February 10, 2016

Nailing the point home that The Flames weren’t going to let the Leafs walk all over them because of some scratches, Giordano then absolutely hammered Nazem Kadri

Giordano hit on Kadri cc @Sdude05 pic.twitter.com/gUWaCSSBQd

— Stephanie (@myregularface) February 10, 2016

Obviously upset by this, Rich Clune spent most of the second period flying around the ice trying to start something with any Flame he could find, eventually drawing a roughing penalty from Brandon Bollig. An unfortunate hand on puck penalty taken by Josh Jooris was another penalty for the Flames defence to kill off, and they were successful.

For most of the rest of the game possession was solidly for the Leafs, They ultimately finished with double the number of shot attempts, and the game log shows only 6 total were made against the Leafs top line during the whole game. That being said, when they did have the puck, The Flames managed to get it past James Reimer another two times. Michael Ferland scored his third goal of the year, and Dougie Hamilton scored number 8.

The Leafs have 19 regulation wins in their last 102 games.

I’m not kidding.

— James Mirtle (@mirtle) February 10, 2016

You can now make that 103 games.

Up next, The Flames travel to San Jose to play The Sharks on Thursday.

by Species