'A snowball effect' after Rasmus Sandin had to be helped to the dressing room after a knee-on-knee hit from Neil Pionk
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WINNIPEG — Auston Matthews dismissed the late stages of Sunday’s 6-3 rowdy result to the Jets as “not really hockey … a bit of a gong show.”
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But a stumbling start was just as difficult for him and the Maple Leafs to watch, falling into a four-goal hole that made their attempt at back-to-back rallies near impossible.
While the loss was a missed chance to retrieve top spot in the division from idle Florida, leaving just one point from their Central Time Zone road trip, there were added damages. Defenceman Rasmus Sandin had to be helped to the dressing room after a knee-on-knee hit from defenceman Neil Pionk, a player who has a history of such incidents with the Leafs.
Coach Sheldon Keefe could provide no immediate update on Sandin before the team flew home, and Sandin’s Sunday night defence partner, Morgan Rielly, could only add he was in a lot of pain when they talked post-game. Sandin was a little off balance after shooting wide during a frantic 4-on-4 play around the Jets’ net and the replay showed Pionk’s attempt to impede him by sticking his leg out.
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“It looks to me like it’s a five-minute major,” Keefe said. “Knee-on-knee, a guy gets carried off. But I didn’t get much from the officials in terms of how they saw it. Obviously, they didn’t see it, if they did, they probably would’ve called it differently.”
Before that, the stripes let Matthews and Pierre-Luc Dubois wrestle before eventually sending both off, while post-Sandin, Jason Spezza took a run at Pionk. Wayne Simmonds came out of the box for a crosscheck and 10-minute misconduct to engage Jets’ giant Logan Stanley, who exited the game like a WWE character, exhorting the crowd at Canada Life Centre. Kyle Clifford and Brenden Dillon had the only true fight of the night, but eight roughing minors and four cross checks were called throughout.
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“There was a snowball effect, things spiralled out of control a bit,” said Matthews, who rarely takes penalties.
Captain John Tavares said Pionk lit the fuse.
“Obviously, we didn’t like the hit on Sandy. Any time you see a teammate go down like that and have to be carried off, we’ll stick up for one another.”
In the end, the thirst for revenge came back to bite them. Simmonds was in the box when Pionk and Kyle Connor set up Mark Scheifele for the insurance goal, the Jets’ third on the power play, after Matthews scored for the sixth straight game (a 5-on-3) and Ondrej Kase then cut Winnipeg’s lead to two.
It was the first loss for rookie goalie Joseph Woll in four starts relieving Jack Campbell and even he was shaken up, an accident when he came out of his crease to cover a puck from an on-rushing Jet with a glancing blow to the head. Woll finished the game but was not made available to the media.
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“The first two periods, so many odd-man rushes, we didn’t give him any help,” Matthews said. “That’s on us. And he still made some pretty amazing saves (on 41 shots). The way we let them fly through and have all these odd-man rushes, that’s not yhe way you want to play.”
Matthews, Tavares, Rielly and William Nylander (injured Mitch Marner was kept out a second game, but due to return) were unable to cash their first power play, leaving it to Michael Bunting and the second unit to tie it after Dubois scored with Simmonds off. Ditto when the No. 1 unit had another opportunity late in the first. Then came wave after wave of Jets, goals by Andrew Copp, Evgeny Svechnikov, Kyle Connor and Nikolaj Ehlers. The guy everyone in the house wanted to score, captain Blake Wheeler, settled for two assists after a pre-game ceremony with his family on the ice.
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Keefe’s team arrived around 1 a.m. local time after the shootout loss in Minnesota, but he was reluctant to go down that avenue of excuse.
“We did have lack of attention to detail, lack of structure, lack of purpose in the things that have made us (16-5-4). It would be easy to go to the fatigue factor, but that’s not good enough. This is the reality of the schedule; you have to play back-to-back. So you just have to be that much more focused, that much more detailed.”
As they did the night before in Minnesota down three, the Leafs didn’t break. They made the most of a 5-on-3, after some initial stick squeezing, isolating Matthews for a high snap on Connor Hellebuyck, giving him 15 on the season. Kase struck next with 24 minutes still to play.
As well resting Campbell, Keefe put Clifford in for Joey Anderson and Timothy Liljegren for Travis Dermott, though he tried splitting the Swedes up, putting Liljegren with Jake Muzzin.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiamh0dHBzOi8vdG9yb250b3N1bi5jb20vc3BvcnRzL2hvY2tleS9uaGwvdG9yb250by1tYXBsZS1sZWFmcy90cmF2ZWwtd2VhcnktbGVhZnMtbG9zZS1iaXR0ZXItYmF0dGxlLXRvLWpldHPSAZgBaHR0cHM6Ly90b3JvbnRvc3VuLmNvbS9zcG9ydHMvaG9ja2V5L25obC90b3JvbnRvLW1hcGxlLWxlYWZzL3RyYXZlbC13ZWFyeS1sZWFmcy1sb3NlLWJpdHRlci1iYXR0bGUtdG8tamV0cy93Y20vNDVmZDA2ZmQtNjk0My00ZTQzLTk0YTEtOTM4YzQ3Yjg5YTBmL2FtcC8?oc=5
2021-12-06 12:11:15Z
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