TORONTO — They scored with 23 seconds left to play in the first period and 23 seconds into the second. They responded to the Washington Capitals’ opening goal by scoring one of their own — you guessed it — 23 seconds later.
This was the 23rd game of the Toronto Maple Leafs season and they were honouring the life of Pat Quinn, a man who wore No. 23 when he played in Toronto.
Quinn died on Nov. 23 after a long illness.
Even though the Leafs organization is more heavily invested than ever in slicing through the layers of a hockey game to better understand it, there was a little too much kismet at Air Canada Centre to be completely ignored on Saturday.
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“That’s kind of weird how that all happened and how that all unfolded like that, but maybe he’s watching over us,” forward Nazem Kadri said after the 6-2 win over Washington. “Who knows?”
“Yeah maybe we should go buy the 6/49 tonight and get ’23-23-23,”‘ added coach Randy Carlyle, who also wore No. 23 as a Leafs player.
“It’s worth $25-million. I won’t be here Monday then.”
All joking aside, the most important omen for the Leafs right now is that there’s less voodoo involved in the opening stretch of their season.
A third win in four games now has them at 27 points — two behind where they were at this stage a year ago, but seemingly ahead just the same.
There have been modest gains in shot differential and a noticeable improvement in the forward depth. Carlyle rolled four lines throughout Saturday’s game and every player saw at least 10 minutes of ice time.
The blowout losses to Buffalo and Nashville are still close enough in the rear-view mirror for consistency to remain a question mark, but the Leafs should be encouraged by the fact they’ve strung together four solid efforts in a row.
Even though Washington finished with 37 shots on Saturday, some of that output can be attributed to the lopsided score. The Leafs were ahead 3-0 early in the second period and had more than half of the even-strength shot attempts at that point before the Caps pushed back possession-wise.
“I thought we played half the game the way we wanted and then we kind of got away from our game, but how do you critique a 6-2 win?” said Carlyle.
The Leafs had a hot start last season because of a lethal top line and outstanding goaltending, but couldn’t maintain the pace. After going 14-8-1 through 23 games, they won just two of the next 23 games in regulation.
It is obviously the kind of lull that can’t be repeated.
The victory over Washington included two goals from defencemen — Morgan Rielly and Cody Franson — and two more from Tyler Bozak, who has 11 already this season. David Clarkson added his seventh. This hasn’t been a one-line team and, even though Jonathan Bernier made some good saves Saturday, it’s not like he’s been stealing games.
Really the only area of concern at the end of an entertaining night was the health of popular winger Leo Komarov, who was being monitored for concussion symptoms following a blindside hit from Capitals star Alex Ovechkin in the third period.
The pair were teammates with Moscow Dynamo during the most recent NHL lockout and Ovechkin claimed to have meant no harm with the hit. He stopped by the Leafs dressing room to chat with Komarov before heading to the bus.
The Leafs, however, weren’t entirely buying his explanation.
“I thought it was kind of ‘Oops I hit you on purpose,”‘ said Carlyle.
The Leafs final goal came, fittingly, on their 23rd shot. Joffrey Lupul tipped that one home and his team wouldn’t direct another puck on net for the rest of the night.
It was eerie enough for some to wonder whether there was some divine intervention involved, but the truth about Toronto’s recent turnaround is actually much more straightforward.
“We get contributions from every line,” said Bozak. “When that’s the case, you have a great chance of winning.”
The odds certainly seem to have improved.
