Maurice evens up with 2-0 win over Leafs

Cam Ward made 35 saves and the Carolina Hurricanes snapped a five-game losing streak with a 2-0 victory over the Maple Leafs on Monday night, giving coach Paul Maurice a victory in his return to Toronto.

Joe Corvo and Chad LaRose scored to back Ward’s second shutout of the season for Carolina.

The Maple Leafs were blanked for the second consecutive home game.

Maurice spent the past two seasons coaching the Maple Leafs and acknowledged recently that games against his former team mean a little more.

Toronto won 6-4 at Carolina on Thursday, but the Hurricanes returned the favor in the rematch by winning 2-0, earning key points as they look to get back in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

Corvo broke a scoreless tie just more than a minute after Tomas Kaberle was penalized for clearing the puck over the glass from his own end. The Hurricanes defenseman one-timed a shot past a screened Vesa Toskala at 16:26 of the second period.


LaRose scored with just 4.9 seconds left in the period. Maple Leafs forward Alexei Ponikarovsky had a great chance to clear the puck from his team’s end, but put it on the stick of Matt Cullen instead. Cullen quickly found LaRose all alone in front and it was 2-0 after 40 minutes.

Toronto came out with more desperation in the third period but Ward was equal to the challenge—getting his pad on Niklas Hagman’s shot from in close before turning away Ian White’s slap shot a few moments later. Ward later stopped Ponikarovsky’s chance from the top of the crease to preserve the shutout.

The Maple Leafs have had no trouble scoring away from home of late, but it’s been 127 minutes, 51 seconds since they’ve found the back of the net at Air Canada Centre.

That was only part of the bad news for the team Monday.

Toronto coach Ron Wilson said after the morning skate that he expected to have defenseman Mike Van Ryn back in the lineup for the first time since Dec. 18. However, Van Ryn failed to pass a test to clear the way for his return from a concussion and remained sidelined.

Toronto has just three wins in its last 13 games and heard a few boos from the home crowd once again. The team faces Boston at home on Wednesday before getting a couple of days off during this weekend’s All-Star break.

Leafs Beat Canes 6-2

Well, the Cardiac Kids strike again. In what appeared to have the makings of a blowout with the Leafs leading 4-1 going into the third. Carolina scored three un-answered goals in the third to tie it up. Thanks to a couple of of timely saves and the "Jason Blake show", the Buds managed to hold on and win by a final of 6-4


With 11 seconds to go, Jason Blake cemented his bit for a hat-trick with an empty netter. White, Hagman and Kaberle also had goals, that while timely, where eclipsed by the five point night of Blake who also got the first star of the game. “We got lazy and we took some penalties,” Blake said. “They’ve got a lot of offensive skill over there and they took advantage of it. We just obviously wanted … to put the foot on the pedal and keep doing what we were doing.”



I don’t know if there is any bittersweetness for us,” coach Ron Wilson said, “but yeah, we found a way to win. We never should have put ourselves in that position, but we did.”

As a bit of a side note, it was Coach Paul Maurices first game behind the bench against his former team. When asked what he told his team between the second and third period that led to the comeback, Maurice responded, “Nothing that you can print.”


The Leafs are in Atlanta tonight and as always, you can hear the game live, right hear on Bench Brawl