New Jersey Devils wins 2-1 against the Toronto Maple Leafs
The first game of Thursday was hosted by the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Centre as they were up against the inform New Jersey Devils. Both teams were playing the 55th game of the season and a win for Devils was a compulsion if they wanted
to have chances of finishing in the play-off spot.
Both teams were pretty much even on paper and this proved to be the case during the game. Both the teams matched each other in terms of goal attempts during the course of the regulations.
A goal apiece left the scores level on 1-1 so the game went into overtime where New Jersey Devils scored to win the game. Ilya Kovalchuk of the New Jersey Devils was named the player of the game for his winning goal in overtime.
Toronto Maple Leafs made a decent start to the game as they made a few goal attempts early on and displayed some excellent passing and shooting abilities. There were several chances for the Maple Leafs to attack and scored but they were reluctantly to involve
all of their men into the attacks.
After a few minutes passed in the period, the Devils opened up and started to come up with a more comfortable game for themselves. The attacked and passed the puck around here and there and then attacked. Both teams defended really well during the 20 minutes
of play which resulted in the period ending goalless.
Though both teams had numerous chances to score but they failed to convert them into goals and the period ended with Devils making 11goal attempts while Maple Leafs made 8 goal attempts and scores level on 0-0.
The second period of the game saw an even stronger start made by both teams offensively. They attacked right from the word go and wanted to score as soon as possible.
It took some time for the first goal to be scored but after some brilliant pieces of play and passing, Nikolai Kulemin scored for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 6th minute to get into the lead.
Both teams continued to attack and there were several scoring chances for both teams but unfortunately they weren’t successful in finding the back of the net. Maple Leafs had a very easy chance to go ahead by two goals in the 14th minute but the
shot was hit wide by Phil Kessel. The period despite the several goal attempts didn’t see any further goals with Toronto Maple Leafs leading 1-0 at the end of the period with both teams making 13 goal attempts each.
The final period followed on the same roads with the only difference being the fact that this time it was New Jersey Devils who scored in the 4th minute to level the scores. The goal was scored by Dainius Zubrus from a brilliant tip in shot.
Both teams made numerous goal attempts similar to the previous period but there was only one goal scored. The regulation time ended with the scores level on 1-1. The game went into overtime with both teams making 12 goal attempts in the final period.
During the overtime, New Jersey Devils scored through Ilya Kovalchuk in the 5th minute to win the game 2-1 and resultantly closed the gap on the eighth and final play-off spot.
Tags: