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After winning an intense, emotional game last night against the Bruins, it would’ve been fair to expect a letdown from the Maple Leafs against a rested Flyers team that hasn’t played since Thursday.

Compounding matters, Philadelphia scored under four minutes into the game on a weak goal, to say nothing of the Leafs later losing Jake McCabe and going down to five defensemen for two-plus periods.

But credit to the Leafs. They dug in, pushed the game to overtime, and their top players pulled through to grab two greasy points out of a schedule-loss situation.

The two points are great, the injury to McCabe is very worrisome, and the first-place Leafs keep racking up points regardless of the circumstances. 

Your game in 10:

1.   It was an awful start to the game for the Leafs, who looked every bit like a team that played last night and was now facing a rested Flyers squad chomping at the bit.

The Max Pacioretty – John Tavares – William Nylander line started the first shift and were hemmed in their zone for roughly a minute as the Flyers forechecked and won battles. The Leafs weren’t ready to match their intensity, and it set the tone for the first few shifts as Toronto really struggled to move up the ice.

After the initial run of play, the opening goal came on an innocent-looking 2v2 that resulted from a collision between Garnett Hathaway and Max Pacioretty (I didn’t think it was interference). The Leafs should have been in good shape to defend it, but the Flyers worked a simple criss-cross through the neutral zone, and Morgan Rielly backed off, giving too much cushion. Tyson Foerster walked in and curled one far side on Dennis Hildeby, using Rielly as a screen.

It was a bad gap by Rielly and a bad goal for Hildeby to give up. It’s not like the shot went off the post and in or anything special. At his size, Hildeby should close down the angle with ease. It was a tough start and could’ve portended a long night, but Hildeby settled in after giving up the first goal and played really well overall.

2.   Flyers head coach John Tortorella lined up his best forward/overall player (Travis Konecny) and best defensive center (Sean Couturier) on separate lines in this game. Those two usually play together; in fact, Konecny is Couturier’s most common linemate this season, with over 160 five-on-five minutes together. With them apart, I wondered who the Flyers would seek to match up against the Leafs’ top line. While Konecny is an excellent player, his centerman, Ryan Poehling, isn’t exactly a credible option to take on the Auston Matthews line.

Right after the Flyers took the lead, the matchup played out as Poehling had a chance to clear it and made a terrible drop pass that Matthew Knies picked off before setting up Matthews for a one-timer. The Matthews shot didn’t go in, but the Leafs recovered the rebound, and the puck worked its way to Chris Tanev at the point. Tanev took a shot pass for deflection to Matthews, who was battling in front. The initial play was stopped, but the rebound bounced right to Knies, who calmly deposited it into the empty net for his 15th of the season, tying his total from 2023-24 in just his 39th game of the season.

After the goal, Tortorella chewed out Poehling on the bench for the drop pass, but really, should Poehling see the ice regularly against the loaded-up Matthews line?

3.    The first period was high event overall, as shot attempts were 27-25 in favour of the Flyers. It wasn’t exactly the tight, defensive, neutral-zone hockey we’ve become accustomed to under Craig Berube. The Leafs’ best chance was a Connor Dewar rebound shot in the slot, while Hildeby made a big save on Foerster, who was in alone.

After all the back and forth, Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored to give the Leafs the lead. David Kampf skated into the zone and purposely took a low shot for a rebound off the rush as Dewar and Lorentz crashed the net. Dewar was first on it, taking defenders with him, and it made it to Lorentz, who tried to pull the puck around the sprawling Flyers goalie. The puck was kicked out by the goalie’s pad and laid out in the slot for OEL, who made a smart play by using his reach to poke at it. It was enough to get it by a goalie lying discombobulated on the ground.

It was OEL’s second goal of the season, and a Leafs defenseman has now scored two games in a row after 16 games without one. The fourth line created a goal, drew a penalty later (and took one), and all three players were part of a perfect penalty kill. Can’t ask for much more from line four.

4.   The most important story of this game in the long term surrounds the events late in the first period leading to the Jake McCabe injury.

Hathaway cut through the crease, contacting Hildeby and McCabe, who took exception. It was a hard play to make sense of. Hathaway was on the ice, and McCabe was jabbing him; then, McCabe let Hathaway get up and kept at it, and when Hathaway dropped his gloves, McCabe’s were still on. From that point, McCabe was playing catchup in the fight, and when McCabe was taken down, Hathaway’s leg appeared to make contact with McCabe’s head, leaving McCabe in rough shape.

On the intermission panel, Nick Kypreos noted McCabe shouldn’t have let Hathaway get up, which I agree with. But if McCabe was going to let him get up, instead of pushing Hathaway again with his gloves on, he had to fight him right then and there. The injury resulted from some bad luck more than anything else, but it’s hard to fight if you’re still getting your gloves off when the opponent has his off and is already throwing.

5.    Regarding a response, the Leafs didn’t have much one against Hathaway until the third period when Max Domi took a healthy run at Hathaway, leading with his elbow.

On the one hand, I appreciate Domi going after Hathaway; on the other hand, it’s 2-2 in the third period at that point, and he could’ve just squared up and fought him rather than throwing a big elbow and taking a penalty.

The Leafs’ players dug in for a great penalty kill afterward, including a highlight-reel rush from Mitch Marner. I will also note that it’s tough to respond when you’re down to five defensemen and players like Simon Benoit and Philippe Myers are the most capable of responding.

6.   The Leafs announced early in the second period that McCabe would be out for the game, and that understandably put a ton of pressure on a defense that was not only down to five but also played last night. 

Rielly played a season-high 26:43, while Tanev played the second most ice time of his season at 23:14. OEL tied his second-highest mark at 24:24. Benoit also played over 20 minutes, while Myers was just under 19. Benoit moved up with Tanev for most of the night, while OEL paired up with Rielly as much as possible, with Myers rotating in.

Down to five defensemen, the Leafs really slowed the game down compared to the first period and made it a bit of a slog. After 25 shot attempts in the first period, the Leafs recorded just 18 for the rest of regulation. They created little offensively the rest of the game, which is understandable but also frustrating when they were facing an inexperienced goalie playing his first game since December 5.

7.   William Nylander hasn’t scored in seven games now — his longest mark of the season — and played just 16:50 against the Bruins, his fifth-lowest mark of the season. His line wasn’t good last night, and in fairness, before Saturday, he was saddled with Kampf and Holmberg as his centers. It seems to have zapped some life from his play.

In the second period, Nylander was too casual when picking up the puck off the wall on a rimmed puck. Instead of controlling it or even making a play, he missed the puck. It went right to Couturier, who picked up the puck with speed, took it toward the net, and hit Scott Laughton for a goal at the backdoor as Rielly failed to tie Laughton up properly.

It was a bad play from Nylander, and in the third period, Berube double-shifted him with the Domi-McMann duo in an attempt to get him going. He has played really poorly of late, and the coaching staff is trying to force things now.

At one point in the third period, Nylander was in all alone with the goalie and lost the handle on the puck, failing to even attempt a shot.

8.   As the game went along, Tortorella switched the Poehling-Matthews matchup because his team was predictably getting tilted inside of it. He instead gave Noah Cates and his linemates Foerster and Bobby Brink some shifts against the Toronto top line. The shift in the matchup, combined with the Leafs’ in-flux defense, really changed the game.

Nylander struggled and his line did very little, while McMann-Domi-Robertson struggled to generate offense for the second straight game. Nick Robertson, in particular, played just 8:44, the lowest mark of any Leaf.

The only line on the positive side of the shot attempt share was the fourth line, which was well-earned. They got pucks in deep all game and worked it to the slot. This feels like the first sustainably good fourth line the team has put together. They are starting to string together games where they are making notable contributions.

9.   The third period was as sleepy as it gets, with the shots on net ending at just 7-5 in the Flyers’ favour. Hildeby was solid when called on and battled through a few sequences where the Flyers crashed the net hard and dug for rebounds.

The Leafs’ best chances were Nylander in alone (as mentioned) following another massive Max Pacioretty hit and a spin-around attempt from Knies to power the puck to the net. In the final few minutes, the Leafs strung together a few good shifts and controlled play, which was pretty impressive considering they were down a defenseman and at the end of a back-to-back.

That’s the positive part, but the negative part is the general play of the Pacioretty-Tavares-Nylander line. They are struggling to create much of anything. The top line and fourth line were both about as good as you can expect, and this was a night after the first line pretty well did it all for the team. It’s fair to expect the third line not to have it more often than not, but the same can’t be said of the second line.

10.   You have to give the Leafs credit for digging in and pulling out the two points. Morgan Rielly played a season-high 26:43 and scored the game-winner in OT.

Interestingly, with Matthews back and Knies playing well, the Leafs’ pairs in overtime were Matthews-Marner (as usual), Nylander-Knies (that’s new), and Tavares-Domi (also new). By the time Matthews came out for his second shift in overtime, Tavares won a race to the puck and whacked it down to him, while Rielly beat his man up ice to make it a 2v1. Matthews waited for it to develop before passing it over to Rielly, who was afforded time and space and made the Flyers pay with his first goal since November 5 (26 games ago).

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

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