It appeared that goaltending could just be the cost of the game for a second. Maple LeafsTheir home opener.
First, Nic Dowd’s weak shot wormed its way through Ilya Samsonov to erase the Leafs’ 1-0 lead. Worse, the Leafs’ 1-0 lead was erased. Marcus Johansson fired a very stoppable shot from the right faceoff dot under Samsonov’s blocker. The goal gave the Capitals, outshot, and outplayed to that stage, a 2-1 advantage.
Things looked dicey.
It was Samsonov’s first start as a Leaf. It also just happened to come against the team that selected him with the 22nd pick in the 2015 draft — and the team that decided last offseason they had seen enough and were moving on from him.
According to Sheldon Keefe’s head coach, Samsonov was told by the Leafs that he would be starting against his former club in the beginning.
“After the second goal, (it was) a little bit of a wake-up call for me,” Samsonov said. “I needed to do (something) a little bit different. I was nervous. When you get nervous, your reaction is slow, you’re moving bad. But after this, (I) played better and the team won.”
The Leafs won their first win of season thanks to Samsonov, who stopped every shot after the Johansson goal.
In some ways, the performance highlighted what the Leafs do and don’t need from their two wild-card goaltenders this season.
