Maple Leafs see silver lining in 5-4 shootout loss to Senators

A point lost? Or a point earned?

The Toronto Maple Leafs justifiably viewed their 5-4 shootout loss to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday evening as the latter.

Mike Hoffman scored the shootout winner to end the affair in which Mike Babcock’s team fought back from being down 3-0 early in the second period and 4-3 late in the third period to notch their first point in the standings after losing twice to start the season.

Both teams had their first taste of the new 3-on-3 overtime format and despite plenty of opportunites, could not score in sudden death.

“When things go bad, we seem to feel bad and we seem to be fragile and we just don’t keep playing,” said Babcock. “I thought tonight we kept playing…. you’d love to win that game but from where we were, I thought it was positive.”

After a strong first period where his team outshot and more importantly out-chanced their opposition, the wheels came off to start the second.

Kyle Turris netted his third goal in two games under a minute into the period to start a powerplay onslaught by the visitors.

Alex Chiasson and Milan Michalek, also scored with the man advantage (on seperate power plays) 1:18 apart to put the Senators up 3-0 before the five-minute mark.

However, behind what head coach Mike Babcock saw as a goaltending performance from James Reimer that gave his team “a chance”, the homeside did not wilt, cutting the lead to one after 40 minutes on goals by Joffrey Lupul and Tyler Bozak.

Peter Holland tied the game on the powerplay at 3:18 of the third period, beating Craig Anderson with a nice move to his backhand while parked at the edge of the crease.

Forward Brad Boyes felt that it was Lupul’s goal, scored just over two minutes after his team went down by three which provided the team with the shot their collective psyche needed.

“Something we had kind of been lacking the last couple of games is a timely goal,” he said.  “It gives us the mindset of “now we are down by two” – we keep going.  That gives us a boost, that’s exactly what it did, it was a huge goal.”

The Maple Leafs were outscored 7-1 over their first two games which along with an injury to Shawn Matthias (shoulder) that kept him from play against Ottawa, may have prompted Babcock to tinker with his lines.

Lupul started the game on a line with left-wing Daniel Winnik and centre Nick Spaling.

Babcock put the trio together in the second period of Friday's  4-0 loss to the Detroit Red Wings.

They were dangerous early against the Senators, generating two good chances on their second shift of the game.

Lupul began the season playing with Matthias and Tyler Bozak.

Michael Grabner (team debut) and Roman Polak (season debut) also played for the first time after being scratched for the first two games.

Ottawa’s dynamic rookie duo from last season came together to regain the lead for the Senators when Mark Stone deflected Hoffman’s point shot at 8:59.  However, Daniel Winnik leveled the score at 4-4 when he received a bouncing feed from Boyes and outwaited Anderson on a backhand shot with under four minutes remaining

The goal was initially waived off and play continued for about 40 seconds before a video review showed that the puck had gone in and out in off the net camera.

Winnik’s first of the season came less than minute after Alex Chiasson was thwarted by Reimer on a point blank chance in the crease.

Reimer made 29 saves on 33 shots including two in the extra session where he denied Curtis Lazar, staying with the Senators forward who held the puck and drove the net on a 2-on-1.

“It was one of those games where I thought I made a lot of good saves but at the same time I would like to have maybe one or two of those early in the second (back)," said Reimer, who started his first game of the season after entering play in relief of Jonathan Bernier on Friday at Joe Louis Arena. “We found a way to squeak out a tie, I was really proud of the way we worked and the way we stuck to our game.”

One of the tasks Babcock was charged with entering his first season behind the bench in Toronto was turning around a team that was known to be outworked by their opposition.

On Saturday he saw progress.

“We don’t have to change the people, we just gotta change how we do it,” he said.  “I thought they looked good at times tonight, really good and carried a lot of the play…. we found a way to make an evening that looked like it was going very poorly into an evening that went better than it looked like it was going (to go)."

Follow Neil Acharya on Twitter: @Neil_Acharya