Had Scott Laughton’s penalty shot in the second period gone in, the Toronto Maple Leafs could’ve been walking away from their game against the Detroit Red Wings with a different outcome than a 2-1 overtime loss.
As Laughton stepped up for the free breakaway, you would’ve thought: surely the veteran forward is going to walk in and score a slap shot on Red Wings goaltender John Gibson.
Instead, Laughton approached Gibson slowly and eventually mishandled the puck, allowing it to stay out. Why didn’t he walk in and attempt his patented clapper?
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“I was too tired,” he said. “I should’ve faked a broken stick and let (Auston) Matthews go or something.”
Despite the overtime loss — plus a failed penalty shot attempt — Laughton wasn’t too down on himself after the game when discussing what occurred on the chance which could’ve put Toronto up 2-1.
“I’ve done that move before. Just lost the puck, that’s pretty much it,” Laughton continued. “I could probably shoot it there, but it’s easy to say once I watch it again and slow it down and do all that.
“But it doesn’t go in, and the sun comes up tomorrow, and we get back after it.”
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The 31-year-old, though, did have the Maple Leafs’ only goal in the game, which came in the opening period off a nice tic-tac-toe play between him, Steven Lorentz, and Calle Jarnkrok.
“(Jarnkrok) fans on it, tried to go for a rebound, and was lucky enough that it bounced off a stick, and I had a wide-open net,” added Laughton.
It was Laughton’s seventh goal and ninth point in 32 games this season.
Although the trio of Laughton, Lorentz, and Jarnkrok were outchanced in the game at five-on-five, they did have a 66.49 percent expected goals-for at five-on-five, the best among all four of Toronto’s lines against Detroit, per NaturalStatTrick.com.
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“They were good. I mean, they got us a goal,” head coach Craig Berube said, “but just they played against one of those top lines most of the night and did a good job against them and didn’t give much up and checked well, did what they do, killed penalties. They were good.”
A loss is a loss, albeit it was overtime. They did get one point.
Even with the point, Toronto remains outside of a playoff spot, one point back of the Boston Bruins and two points behind the Buffalo Sabres for the two wild-card spots in the Eastern Conference.
Opponents are only going to get harder: the Vegas Golden Knights roll in on Friday, while the Colorado Avalanche come to Toronto on Sunday afternoon.
Games are only going to get tighter, too, as we saw on Wednesday evening against the Red Wings.
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“You want to get the extra (point), I think, especially within the division, but we didn’t, and we keep moving forward,” said Laughton.
“I thought we played a better game than Minnesota. We were tighter. Our D grinded. You go down to five D that early, it’s a grind, and they played really well for us. (Joseph Woll) was good. The guys stepped up.
“We just got to find a way to get that extra goal, a greasy one at some point in the game. But we didn’t, and we just got to keep moving.”
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