Carlyle a winner as Leafs beat Canadiens 3-1
Posted March 3, 2012 9:49 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Mikhail Grabovski scored twice in the third period as the Toronto Maple Leafs gave new coach Randy Carlyle a victory with a 3-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.
The win, only the second in the last 12 games for the slumping Leafs, ended a six-game winless run.
The Leafs fired fourth-year coach Ron Wilson on Friday night and hired Carlyle in a bid to energize a 12th place team for a late run to make the playoffs.
His first game behind the bench came in a nationally televised encounter between the NHL’s oldest rivals, with a large contingent of Toronto fans in the Bell Centre seats putting up competing chants with the Canadiens supporters.
Matt Frattin also scored for Toronto (30-28-7). Erik Cole scored for Montreal (25-31-10).
Toronto hardly played a convincing or cohesive game against an injury-struck Montreal lineup, but outshot them 42-22.
Grabovski scored on the Leafs’ 40th shot as they caught Montreal on a line change. Clarke McArthur slid a pass to the Belarusian centre, who used Alexei Emelin as a screen to beat Carey Price with a high shot from the slot to break a tie at 11:45 of the third frame.
He added another on a power play with 53 seconds left in the game.
Carlyle had said when he took over that the Leafs seemed tense, and nerves showed as Montreal controlled early and got the first goal when David Desharnais fed Cole for a shot into an open side 7:16 in.
A lively fight between Mike Brown and Montreal newcomer Brad Staubitz seemed to cool off Montreal and the Leafs had several clear shots but couldn’t beat Price. Brown went to the dressing room for repairs, came back in the second frame, and then didn’t come out for the third. There was no immediate word on his condition.
A scrambly second period saw Toronto tie the game when the face lay in the circle after a faceoff between Phil Kessel and Lars Eller and Frattin jumped on it to score on a quick shot.
Carlyle tweaked the lineup, bringing Mike Komisraek back in and taking out Cody Franson. He also had Matt Frattin and Niklai Kulemin, and Dave Steckel and Matthew Lombardi switch lines from the ones Wilson had at practice on Friday.
