Joseph Woll makes 29 saves before leaving with injury, Maple Leafs hold off Senators 4-3
Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman TJ Brodie (78) and right wing Ryan Reaves (75) help goaltender Joseph Woll, center front, to the bench during third-period NHL hockey game action against the Ottawa Senators, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, in Ottawa. Credit: AP/Adrian Wyld
OTTAWA, Ontario — Joseph Woll made 29 saves before leaving because of an injury midway through the third period and the Toronto Maple Leafs held on to beat the Ottawa Senators 4-3 on Thursday night.
Woll left after stopping a shot from Rourke Chartier. The goalie was in obvious pain, requiring assistance to leave the ice.
“It’s unfortunate,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “He’s been playing so well. He was building such great momentum here on his season and his career. It’s a setback here now.
“He’s going to miss some time, for sure. We’ll determine the extent of it once we get home. Obviously, he’s the big reason why we get two points here tonight.”
Toronto led 3-2 at the time of the injury, and William Nylander made it 4-2 with 6:57 remaining.
Mitch Marner, David Kampf and Calle Jarnkrok also scored for the Maple Leafs, and Martin Jones stopped none of 10 shots in relief of Woll.
“That team does a really good job of just putting pressure on you in your own zone,” Marner said. “I think we did a pretty good job of … getting out of our zone pretty quickly. When we needed to defend, we did a good job and, obviously, our goalies made a couple of massive saves for us.”
Ottawa Senators right wing Drake Batherson, left, and Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly (44) watch as Maple Leafs goaltender Joseph Woll, top right, makes a glove-save during second-period NHL hockey game action Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, in Ottawa. Credit: AP/Adrian Wyld
Josh Norris, Jacob Bernard-Docker and Claude Giroux scored for Ottawa. Anton Forsberg stopped 18 shots.
“We did a lot of good things,” Giroux said. “Definitely frustrating right now. If we play like that every night we’re going to win more than we lose.”
Jarnkrok gave Toronto a 3-1 edge 3:35 into the third period with a wrist shot, capped a run of three straight Maple Leafs goals.
But under two minutes later, Bernard-Docker made it a one-score game with his first career NHL goal on a point shot.
Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly, left, gets his glove up onto the face of Ottawa Senators right wing Mathieu Joseph, right, during first-period NHL hockey game action Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, in Ottawa. Credit: AP/Adrian Wyld
“It was really cool,” Bernard-Docker said. “I probably celebrated like I’ve never scored one in my life, but it’s the first one so I figured I may as well, you know, give it a little celebration.”
Nylander made it 4-2 with a wrist shot from the left faceoff circle, and Giroux finished the scoring on a one-timer with 1:53 remaining.
Ottawa was unable to complete the comeback after pulling Forsberg and having a power play for the final 50.3 seconds.
“As frustrating as it is right now, we played a pretty solid game and we’re trying to build something here so we’ve just got to keep pushing and try not to get too down here,” Giroux said. “Let’s keep pushing and go one game at a time.”
UP NEXT
Maple Leafs: Host Nashville on Saturday night.
Senators: At Detroit on Saturday night.
