Leafs Hold Off Flyers For Surprise Win

Work ethic trumps talent in sports sometimes and the Toronto Maple Leafs provided the latest example at the expense of the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night.

Jamal Mayers, Lee Stempniak and Ian White scored for the Leafs, who were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention the previous night but were the better team in earning a 3-2 victory.

The Leafs keep drawing capacity crowds to Air Canada Centre – 19,340 this time – because they work their behinds off no matter where they are in the standings.

Arron Asham and Claude Giroux scored for the playoff-bound Flyers, who had more talent on paper but who were outworked all night.

Mayers and Asham exchanged goals in an evenly played opening period.

The Leafs started its domination of the second early. Martin Biron kicked out his left leg to stop a long Jeff Finger shot and was sitting in his crease when Stempniak whacked in the rebound at 1:54 as Toronto regained the lead.

The Flyers were sluggish, and with eight minutes left in the second they iced the puck to relieve the pressure. Coach John Stevens called a 30-second timeout. Whatever he said at the bench had no effect.

White made it 3-1 at 13:03 with a blue-line blast that went over a kneeling Biron’s left shoulder and into the net. He might have stopped the shot had he stayed on his feet. Stevens pulled Biron and sent in Antero Niittymaki. Shots were 28-18 in Toronto’s favour at the time.

At the other end, Curtis Joseph, who was getting only his 10th start this season and who turns 42 on April 29th, had to be wondering, if they were all this easy, he might be able to tend goal in the big league for another five or six years.

With Stempniak penalized for holding a stick, Giroux smacked in a rebound on the power play at 17:09 of the third period.

The Flyers went with an extra attacked for the last 90 seconds. Finger missed the open net with 40 seconds left.

Philadelphia had another chance with a faceoff in Toronto’s end with 25 seconds left. Joseph went down to stop a Carter shot with 16 seconds remaining.

Mikhail Grabovski beat Danny Briere on the next faceoff and it was over.

April Fool’s Day hadn’t been going well for the Leafs.

General manager Brian Burke spent all day telling the media that failing to make the playoffs was a badge of failure and that he was “really bitter and sour” about being excluded from the chase for the Stanley Cup.

The NHL fined the Leafs $500,000 and stripped them of a fourth-round draft pick for a collective bargaining agreement violation in how they handled the signing of Swedish defenceman Jonas Frogren last year. Cliff Fletcher was in charge at the time. Burke issued an apology “for the error of judgment.”

The win over the fizzling Flyers helped ease the day’s mountain of pain.

It was Philadelphia’s third loss in four games. Home-ice advantage when the playoffs begin in two weeks is at stake. If they keep this up, somebody might as well hang a sign across fourth place in the standings reading “Come and Get It!”

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