{"id":506135,"date":"2026-03-16T12:21:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/506135\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T12:21:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:21:25","slug":"leaf-vs-wild-takeaways-new-guys-thrive-veterans-vow-to-not-fold-the-tent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/506135\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaf vs Wild Takeaways: New guys thrive, veterans vow to not ‘fold the tent’"},"content":{"rendered":"

No matter\u00a0how much\u00a0many\u00a0fans want them to fade quietly for draft purposes, the Maple\u00a0Leafs\u00a0have made\u00a0some\u00a0noise\u00a0the past few games.<\/p>\n

Five of a possible six points against playoff-bound clubs falls into \u2018too little, too late territory.\u2019 But replacing traded and injured players with hungry farmhands, which gets some veterans catching the spirit, is a recipe for a few late-season upsets.<\/p>\n

With goaltending, one of their strongest suits this season,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0helped\u00a0the latest win, 4-2 in Minnesota on Sunday<\/a>, passing a couple of teams at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

Our takeaways:<\/p>\n

PUT A BO ON IT<\/p>\n

Watching Auston Matthews<\/a> go 12 games without a goal before his season-ending knee injury and just about every scorer not named William Nylander struggle, makes Bo Groulx\u2019s story all the more fascinating.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old had\u00a0not lit the lamp in the NHL since Nov. 7, 2021,\u00a0one in 65 games as an Anaheim Duck. But he\u2019s earned his second chance as\u00a0leading\u00a0scorer with the Marlies and in\u00a0four Leaf starts has three goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really happy (my skills) translate now in the NHL,\u201d Groulx told Sportsnet after his two middle period goals in a six-minute span. \u201cIt\u2019s all about execution and speed, the passes are more crispy, the guys are faster, they check better. I could have a little more speed in transition, but I\u2019m adjusting to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Message sent for next season\u2019s camp if he\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Minnesota Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt blocks a shot by Toronto Maple Leafs center John Tavares, right, during the second period of an NHL hockey game, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn.<\/p>\n

P.M. (POST\u00a0MATTHEWS) NEWS<\/p>\n

Toronto has now had two games to adjust to the loss of Matthews and a couple more without\u00a0two\u00a0other\u00a0traded\u00a0centres, Nicolas Roy and Scott Laughton. That\u2019s meant John Tavares, Max Domi, Groulx and Jacob Quillan\u00a0have had to hold it together\u00a0down the middle.<\/p>\n

Maybe\u00a0Toronto\u00a0is\u00a0not as dominant on the draw\u00a0these days, but Groulx and Quillan bring energy and\u00a0have not hurt\u00a0the top-ranked\u00a0penalty kill, which helped preserve Sunday\u2019s win and a point in Buffalo the night before.<\/p>\n

Domi\u2019s flexibility to play\u00a0centre\u00a0and wing has proven\u00a0useful\u00a0and though he gets knocked off more pucks at age 35, Tavares is still a force on faceoffs\u00a0and\u00a0down low.<\/p>\n

As for Matthews, who remained in Toronto on this trip, the furor regarding Radko Gudas\u2019s knee-on-knee suspension is slowly giving way to what the next step for recovery will be for the Leaf captain. Friday\u2019s statement by the team about a re-evaluation of Matthews in two weeks<\/a> means that time will be used for a determination about surgery on his Grade 3 MCL tear.<\/p>\n

Given\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0no post-season rush, that procedure could be carried out with plenty of time for summer recovery and a full training camp.<\/p>\n

JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS<\/p>\n

The\u00a0crunch time\u00a0test for the\u00a0Leafs\u00a0in the past few years has been whether they could play competent\u00a0defence\u00a0and get\u00a0enough\u00a0goaltending to augment their scoring.\u00a0That became a moot point for this edition of the team\u00a0when they lost eight straight prior to last week to fall out\u00a0of playoff contention.<\/p>\n

But Sunday was a throwback to Craig Berube\u2019s club of last year when the Leafs supported Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll by boxing out better, quick sticks and most valuable of all, shot blocks.<\/p>\n

Jake McCabe got in front of as many pucks Sunday as he and\u00a0injured\u00a0partner Chris Tanev combined in a night,\u00a0nine of the\u00a0Leafs\u00a028 blocks.\u00a0With 163, McCabe leads the NHL.<\/p>\n

In the final throes of a sub-par season, Morgan Rielly scored, as well as made a couple of key defensive stops and Brandon Carlo played with a burr up his backside. It came on a night the Leafs missed this season\u2019s most consistent blueliner, Oliver Ekman-Larsson.<\/p>\n

When the\u00a0Leafs\u00a0did waver on two quick goals by Vladaimir\u00a0Tarasenko,\u00a0Berube called a timeout and order was restored.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is folding\u00a0their\u00a0tent,\u201d Rielly told reporters in St. Paul. \u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0trying to\u00a0push.\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0not going to win every night, but you want\u00a0the compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stolarz made 36 saves, for his first win since before the Olympic break on\u00a0Feb. 3.\u00a0When he\u00a0and Woll routinely make 30-plus saves a night to hold the\u00a0Leafs\u00a0in\u00a0games,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0hard to be on board with any tanking mentality on the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously crappy where we are at this time of the year,\u201d Stolarz said. \u201cbut at the end of the day, it\u2019s an 82-game season, we have to reset, play hard, establish a culture. We have a lot of call-ups and young guys who play hard, we have to show them the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

lhornby@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n

X:\u00a0@sunhornby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No matter\u00a0how much\u00a0many\u00a0fans want them to fade quietly for draft purposes, the Maple\u00a0Leafs\u00a0have made\u00a0some\u00a0noise\u00a0the past few games. Five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[59432,54,532,1529,3651,59029,5,3082,1127,795,611,3821,9254,20,5172,890,38,885,4,1337,782,9464,929,38506,66,31,5171,1114],"class_list":["post-506135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-abbie-parr","tag-anthony-stolarz","tag-auston-matthews","tag-brandon-carlo","tag-chris-tanev","tag-groulx","tag-hockey","tag-jacob-quillan","tag-jake-mccabe","tag-jesper-wallstedt","tag-john-tavares","tag-joseph-woll","tag-knee-injury","tag-maple-leafs","tag-mapleleafs","tag-max-domi","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-morgan-rielly","tag-nhl","tag-nicolas-roy","tag-oliver-ekman-larsson","tag-radko-gudas","tag-scott-laughton","tag-tarasenko","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-torontomapleleafs","tag-william-nylander"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116238830895083458","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}