@ Vegas

Starting a game with a three goal lead is the most dangerous situation for this franchise because it provides just enough hope to make the collapse feel personal. Jack Roslovic found the net only thirty-four seconds in and Easton Cowan followed that up by proving the kids might actually be alright. Even Nick Paul got in on the action to make it look like a blowout was brewing. Naturally the team decided that playing defense for the rest of the game was purely optional and allowed Vegas to climb back into it. Sergei Bobrovsky basically lived in a shooting gallery and made forty saves just to keep the score respectable while the rest of the roster treated the puck like a live grenade.

The second period was a total disaster where the shots were nineteen to eight in favor of Vegas and Morgan Rielly gifted Jack Eichel a penalty shot that tied the game. Seeing Mitch Marner pick up an assist for the other team is the kind of poetic cruelty that only Leafs fans have to endure. Oliver Ekman-Larsson decided the penalty box was a lovely place to spend his vacation by taking two separate minors and William Nylander finished the game as a minus-two with nothing to show for his five shots. It takes a special kind of talent to let a three goal lead vanish and then lose in a shootout when Trevor Connelly decides to end the misery.

Taking eight penalty minutes against a team that outshot us forty-three to twenty-four is a bold strategy and it worked out exactly how everyone expected. We managed to salvage a point which is the ultimate participation trophy for a team that stopped trying before the first intermission ended. Bo Groulx added a holding penalty in the third just to make sure the momentum stayed firmly with the desert dwellers. Auston Matthews picked up an assist but the offense went completely cold with only four shots in the final frame of regulation. It is another classic chapter in the book of finding ways to lose and the script is getting very familiar.