Washington Capitals trash Maple Leafs 3-1, breaking their three-game win streak in Toronto
Ordinarily, a meeting between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Washington Capitals would be yet another showdown between two of the greatest sharpshooters in NHL history.
Between them, Auston Matthews and Alexander Ovechkin have scored more than 1,200 regular-season goals and claimed 12 Rocket Richard Trophies as the NHL’s leading goal scorer, with both making their living terrorizing goaltenders for about as long as they’ve been in the league.
But the broken fibula currently keeping Ovechkin off the ice – and pausing his seemingly inevitable pursuit of the NHL career goals mark just 26 goals shy of Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894 – robbed Friday’s game of some of its usual marquee billing.
Instead, fans were treated to a matchup between two of the hottest teams in the NHL. The Capitals, who entered the game first in the Eastern Conference, had gone 7-2-1 in their previous 10 games. To give them their due, they have managed to not just survive the absence of their captain but thrive, going 4-2-1 since the Russian went down injured.
And while Toronto has been one of the league’s best teams at home – the only franchise to have won 12 games on home ice – the Caps have arguably been the NHL’s best road team in 2024-25, going 9-2 away from the U.S. capital.
Much to the chagrin of everyone wearing blue and white, they kept things rolling on Friday night, establishing a new franchise record with an eighth consecutive road victory thanks to a 3-1 victory that snapped the Leafs’ three-game win streak. The victory was Washington’s first in Toronto since before the pandemic, with its last success at Scotiabank Arena coming on Oct. 29, 2019.
Toronto head coach Craig Berube pulled few punches in his assessment of his team’s effort.
“I thought they were just more competitive than us, played a harder game than us, won more puck battles than us, skated better than us,” he said. “They were just better.”
On a night where the only bright spot was goaltender Anthony Stolarz – who made 23 saves and kept his team in the game throughout – Toronto got away from its “north game,” as Berube put it. For just the sixth time this season, the Leafs were held to one goal or fewer, managing only 21 shots over the 60 minutes.
But according to Chris Tanev, who set up John Tavares midway through the second period for the Leafs’ only goal of the game, the lack of production on this night wasn’t the problem.
“We just got to worry about just playing harder and moving pucks and working as a five-man unit,” he said. “I don’t think generating offence is the problem.”
Despite Berube and Tanev’s explanations, Leaf fans will likely to point to the officials’ role in Washington’s winning goal as the key to the Caps’ victory. With Matthews attempting to wrap the puck around the boards behind the Leafs goal, the puck instead hit the skate of a referee, deflecting in front of Toronto’s net.
Pierre-Luc Dubois had the first crack at it, and while Stolarz made the save, he was flat on his belly and unable to prevent Ajax, Ont., native Connor McMichael firing the rebound into the unguarded net for his 15th of the season.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, for one, refused to pin the blame for the loss on the officials.
“You know what, I don’t want to change or trade with them,” the Leaf defenceman said. “It’s a tough job, and they do the best they can, and so I have a lot of respect for them.”
Toronto still had plenty of time to get back into the game though, with more than 10 minutes remaining when McMichael scored.
Steven Lorentz seemed to have a golden opportunity to level the scores once again, when Connor Dewar set him up from behind the net with 4:07 to play, but he was unable to hit the target.
And Tavares had an even better chance with under two minutes to play, with Stolarz on the bench for an extra attacker, when Morgan Rielly teed him up from the edge of the crease, but Charlie Lindgren was able to smother the shot and the Caps averted the danger. Aliaksei Protias then scored an empty netter with 56.2 seconds remaining to put the finishing touches on Washington’s win. Nic Dowd had opened the scoring for the Capitals, 66 seconds into the second period.
The Eastern Conference’s top team now heads to Montreal to play the Canadiens on Saturday night, while the Maple Leafs visit Pittsburgh to play the Penguins.
Despite the Penguins’ struggles this season – they lost 4-2 in New York against the Rangers Friday night to fall to 11-13-4 on the season, Berube isn’t about to look past a team featuring Sidney Crosby.
“They’re going to play hard,” he said. “They got some real good players over there that are very good still, and that’s a team that’s desperate, looking for wins. It’s gonna be a hard battle for sure.”
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
