Maple Leafs remain hot, but lose Joseph Woll to 'lower-body' injury

The Maple Leafs finished their trip strong, but Joseph Woll didn’t complete the game.

That put a damper on a dramatic turnaround in team fortunes over the last six away games, a 4-2 record that underlined Toronto has lots of life with four full months remaining in the NHL schedule.

Led by yet another first-shot goal and two outstanding plays engineered by Matthew Knies, the Leafs beat the notoriously stingy – and well-rested – Carolina Hurricanes 5-1.

Woll, who’d made 22 saves in the first two periods, was replaced by Dennis Hildeby in the third, out with what the Leafs announced was a lower-body injury. Woll appeared to be favouring his left side late in the second period after a stretch save.

Severity of Woll’s injury unclear

Leading by three goals at the time, it was initially unclear if the move was precautionary given Woll would likely be starting Saturday night against Montreal in the first of two divisional home games, followed Monday by a visit from Tampa Bay. Or whether his injury history caught up to him after missing the first month of the season while dealing with a personal issue.

“We’ll see tomorrow (an off-day back in Toronto),” head coach Craig Berube said. “Hopefully it’s not (serious).”

Anything long term would be incredibly problematic with Anthony Stolarz still not on the ice after his upper-body injury early in November.

But kudos to the Leafs for their best road record in a swing of five games or more since 2007. It came at a time when the team was scraping the bottom of the Eastern Conference and impatient fans and media were urging changes.

But a strong effort from the bottom-six forwards and Woll’s .947 save percentage the past three starts sparked the turnaround.

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Quick start, big game from Knies fuels win

Back in 2021, Frederik Andersen just missed Knies as the goaltender departed Toronto and the Leafs drafted the young American left-winger.

For Andersen, there was no escaping Knies Thursday when the full power-forward package was on display.

In the second period, after the Leafs scored on the game’s opening shot for the fourth straight time, Knies broke away, brushing off two pawing Canes to beat Andersen on a backhand.

Not content with that highlight reel, Knies broke up a pass in Toronto’s end by getting his stick shaft parallel to the ice to send away linemates Auston Matthews and Max Domi. Knies trailed the play with an adroit pick of a Carolina defender to preserve Domi’s 2-on-1 feed for the captain’s 11th of the year.

The first period was quite the tale of 20 minutes.

Help from improved penalty killing

It was all Toronto to begin, including Bobby McMann on its first attempt. The four-goal streak has only happened twice in the league since 2008-09, last accomplished by Tampa Bay four years ago.

McMann and the Leafs’ suddenly hot third line clicked when Nicolas Roy set him up, McMann hitting the post and the back of Andersen.

Andersen couldn’t be faulted on Scott Laughton’s second in as many games, a rim attempt that struck something uneven on the high glass and came out the other side of the net to the open Leaf.

Toronto’s improved penalty killing survived minors to Matthews and Morgan Rielly, allowing no shots on the latter, but an Easton Cowan spill up ice meant Seth Jarvis got a step on him to convert on Carolina’s first goal. McMann added an empty netter.

The Leafs were 0-for-2 on the power play, tweaking it yet again with defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson ending the first-unit experiment with five forwards. But there were still too many chances the other way.

lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby