Mark Fayne lifts New Jersey Devils to overtime win against Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 -NHL Update
New Jersey and Toronto fought it out hard on Tuesday night, February 21, 2012, as both teams headed into an overtime extension after they failed to take the lead in regulation. Mark Fayne grabbed the game-winner in OT to lift the Devils over Maple Leafs,
4-3, at the sold-out Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Fayne took an attempt at testing his luck as he shot off the goal from the Toronto goalies left side, which interestingly bounced of his pad and through to the net for the game-winner.
"Just get it to the net, that's kind of my mind set in overtime anyways -- just try to get it to the net and let the forwards get the rebounds -- but (I) got lucky with that one," Fayne said. "I think it was just knuckling. I thought it had bounced, but
watching the replay it didn't look it. I think it hit his glove and snuck in behind him."
Maple Leafs’ goalie, Jonas Gustavsson, and his counterpart in the New Jersey net, Martin Brodeur were equally squared during the contest as they both faced 32 shots, but that extra save my the Devils defender gave them the edge they needed.
"It's not about going back to practice (Wednesday) and change my strategy," Gustavsson said. "It's about maybe paying attention -- some extra focus in those situations."
Petr Sykora and David Clarkson grabbed two goals straight in the opening period nearly five minutes apart while Tim Connolly put up Toronto’s first 16 seconds after their second for his ninth of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season.
Clarke MacArthur came out to level the contest in the final minutes of the second period but Alexei Ponikarovsky was right behind him to make sure New Jersey had the one point lead entering the final 20 minutes of game time.
Devils failed to hold on to the one point advantage as Phil Kessel scored the equaliser at 19:16 to force an uncertain overtime, but could not come up as strong in OT.
New Jersey managed to keep winning and have won four in a row now. They have the next at home against Vancouver Canucks on Friday.
Toronto Maple Leafs have now lost two straight, they will be hosting San Jose Sharks next on Thursday.
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