Joseph Woll, The Good And The Bad<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Joseph Woll had a kind of a Jekyll and Hyde kind of game. He was the Maple Leafs’ best player in the first period. Woll stopped the first 14 shots he faced in the game, many of which were decent scoring chances. Woll looked much more in control for the first 37 minutes of this game than Ilya Samsonov did in his last two starts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
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In the third period, for the most part, the Red Wings were buzzing in the Toronto end. Woll was stellar. He made numerous saves and robbed both Christian Fischer and Lucas Raymond of what looked like sure goals. Woll stopped 13 of the 14 shots he faced in the third period, giving up what was essentially a power-play goal five minutes into the period.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sandwiched in between those two time periods was two and a half minutes of hell. The Red Wings scored three goals on four shots in those two-and-a-half minutes. I can write about bad bounces, deflections, and the dreadful play in front of him. Still, Woll did seem to lose his focus in that stretch and he did appear to get a bit rattled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know if anything was said to him between the 2nd and 3rd periods or if he just had a chance to \u201cshake it off\u201d and get refocused; but, as I stated earlier, he was stellar in the third period and ultimately gave the Maple Leafs a chance to make it a close game late in the third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More Maple Leafs Good<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Who would have thought that the best two Maple Leafs players production-wise would be AHLers Max Ellis and Tommy Miller? Each player had a goal and an assist in the game and they were the reason the Maple Leafs built up a 2-0 lead in the second period before it all went to hell.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Max Ellis and Tommy Miller<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The 23-year-old Ellis opened the scoring with a wrist shot that (probably shouldn\u2019t have) beat the Red Wings\u2019 goalie on his glove side. He then got up after being steamrolled by Moritz Seider, won a battle for the puck, and got it back to Miller at the point before heading to the front of the net. Once in front of the goal, Ellis created havoc for both Husso and Seider.\u00a0Miller\u2019s wrist shot from the ricocheted off of both of Seider\u2019s legs past Husso into the net.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One amazing note about Ellis and the 24-year-old Miller is both players are Detroit natives. Ellis is from Plymouth and Miller is from West Bloomfield. Both are subdivisions of the city. This game and those goals had to be the highlight of their hockey careers so far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Miller isn\u2019t even signed to an NHL contract. He is on his second one-year AHL deal with the Marlies. Ellis is in the second year of a two-way ELC deal with the Maple Leafs. Both are long shots to ever make the NHL.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After going down 4-2, the Maple Leafs made a game of it late in the third period. With Woll pulled the Maple Leafs were the beneficiary of a questionable interference call off a faceoff in the Detroit zone. Playing 6-on-4 Sam Lafferty made a nifty move, skating backward from behind the Red Wings\u2019 net and beating Husso over his left pad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Red Wings were called again, this time for a phantom hold on Seider with 28 seconds left in the game but were unable to get the equalizer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All in all, it was a pretty gutsy performance by a severely outclassed group of players.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n