Maple Leafs go for third straight vs. punchless Canucks
TORONTO -- The Toronto Maple Leafs are feeling good about themselves after winning two games in a row.
The Vancouver Canucks are frustrated with their inability to score goals, let alone win games.
The young Maple Leafs will try to keep the good times rolling when they play the Canucks on Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre after they defeated the Buffalo Sabres 2-1 on Thursday for their first road win of the season.
The Canucks (4-6-1) lost 1-0 to the Ottawa Senators on Thursday and have been shut out in four of their past five games. They have lost six in a row in regulation time and seven straight dating to an Oct. 22 shootout loss to the Los Angeles Kings. They have scored a league-low 17 goals in 11 games.
"They feel that we're getting chances, we're just not scoring," Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said Friday when asked how his team is handling the slump. "They've played the game long enough that they know they will eventually come. If you're playing poorly it's tough. It's hard, too, when you've played well and you haven't got anything. ... Our goaltenders have played well, both of them."
"Right now we're getting in front of the net, we're getting to those rebounds but we can't find a way to score," Canucks left winger Daniel Sedin said. "But we have to stay positive. Usually when you go through these stretches you're not playing very well but we are playing well and creating enough chances to score some goals and that's the frustrating part. I feel we could have won a few of those game."
The Maple Leafs (4-4-3), meanwhile, are gaining confidence after winning in Buffalo for the first time since Jan. 29, 2013, when they won in overtime.
Mitch Marner had the first two-goal game in the NHL. He has been playing on a line with Tyler Bozak and James van Riemsdyk.
"We weren't happy with our last couple of games," Marner said. "We were giving up too many chances and (Thursday) we just wanted to play sound defensively and get back hard and help the D out. We knew if we played hard D we'd get the chances on offense and luckily it happened."
"Mitch had a real good game and then hadn't been as good, Bozak had been sick and James wasn't skating as good," Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said, "When they got skating they were better. Everybody got cautious. When you haven't done a ton of winning and you're young, you get cautious and you start backing up instead of -- the game is way more fun when you're playing with the puck in the offensive zone. We'll get that figured out over time as we learn how to win."
A key to the win Thursday was the goaltending of Frederik Andersen. He made 42 saves against the Sabres after stopping 44 shots in a 3-2 overtime win over the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday.
"He's gotten his confidence, obviously," Babcock said. "You can see why we made the move for him, he's a big-time goaltender and he's going to give us confidence as time goes on."
The Canucks know what they are facing in the Maple Leafs.
"They've got their focus on coming with a lot of energy every night and that's why they're hard to play against," Desjardins said.
