Leafs Look Slick Against Oilers
Posted December 14, 2010 11:30 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Kris Versteeg had a goal and an assist as the Toronto Maple Leafs kicked off their Western Canada road trip with a 4-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday.
Dion Phaneuf, Mikhail Grabovski and Phil Kessel also scored for the Leafs (12-14-4) who have won two in a row and four of their last six and moved into a three-way tie for 10th in the Eastern Conference with Buffalo and Carolina.
Jordan Eberle scored in response for the Oilers (11-14-5) who have lost two in a row and three of four to remain in last place in the West.
The Oilers came out flying but it was the Maple Leafs who struck first six minutes in as Phaneuf beat Oilers starter Nikolai Khabibulin with a point blast for his first goal of the season in his first game in his hometown of Edmonton as a Maple Leafs since being traded to Toronto by the Calgary Flames.
Edmonton tied the game up six minutes later as Ryan Whitney did a good job keeping a puck in at the point and sent it to Gagner who slid a pass under Leafs defenceman Francois Beauchemin to Eberle to give the rookie forward his seventh goal of the season
Toronto had a good chance to regain the lead with under a minute left as Versteeg had an open net to shoot for in a scramble but Khabibulin dove across to make a pad save.
The shots were 12-12 after the opening frame, significant for the Oilers in that it equalled their shot on net total from the entire game in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to Vancouver.
The Leafs went up 2-1 eight and a half minutes into the second on the power play as Clarke MacArthur faked a shot and instead sent a nice feed to Grabovski who tapped in his ninth.
Toronto got a bit of a gift goal with two minutes to play in the second as a Versteeg shot dropped into the crease behind Khabibulin and went in off of the skate of defender Jason Strudwick as the Oilers attempted to clear it.
The shots after 40 minutes stood 25-15 in favour of the Maple Leafs.
Phaneuf didn’t make himself any more fans in his hometown in the third as he wrapped an arm around Oiler youngster Taylor Hall long after a whistle, prompting Dustin Penner to jump him and earning the Toronto captain an unsportmanlike call.
But it was Toronto that would score on the power play a couple of minutes later as Versteeg made a nice pass through the crease to Kessel who pounded in his 12th.
Jean-Sebastien Giguere made 23 saves in the Leafs net for the win.
Both teams are back in action on Thursday as the Leafs travel to Calgary for Phaneuf’s first game since being traded to Toronto from the Flames while the Oilers will close out a six-game homestand against Columbus.
Tuesday’s game marked the debut of Edmonton’s cheer team, the Octane. The group of 19 women are the first cheerleaders for an NHL team based in Canada.
