Dallas Stars

The Good, Bad & Ugly in Maple Leafs’ 4-1 Loss to the Stars

Last night, the Toronto Maple Leafs lost 4–1 to the Dallas Stars. What were the good, bad, and ugly parts of the game?

by
Stan Smith
January 15, 2025

The Toronto Maple Leafs were looking for a better effort against the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night than they had in their last two games. They did get that. However, the team still came out on the short end of the 4-1 score. What were the good, bad, and ugly aspects of the game?

The Good: The Maple Leafs Started Well

The Maple Leafs came out flying in the first five minutes of the first period. They got a nice goal from Auston Matthews to open the scoring 4:15 into the game. Mitch Marner did a nice job keeping the puck in the Dallas zone on the play, and Steven Lorentz, playing alongside Matthews and Marner for the first time, did an equally good job preventing both Thomas Harley and Miro Heiskanen from playing the puck. Marner dropped the puck down to Matthews, standing on the faceoff dot to the right of Stars’ goalie Jake Oettinger.

Matthews roofed the puck short-side on Oettinger. Because Lorentz did not touch the puck, he was not awarded an assist on the play, but he played a significant role in the goal by preventing the two Dallas defensemen from getting their sticks on the puck.

Toronto kept the momentum going after Sam Steel took a tripping penalty on Max Domi. On the power play, the Maple Leafs hit the post three times and got two shots on the net but failed to get the puck past Oettinger. Dallas would not get their first shot on the net until 8:30 into the game.

Auston Matthews Maple Leafs scored — Auston Matthews scored the lone goal for the Maple Leafs vs Stars

The Bad: Maple Leafs Postives Ended Early

Unfortunately for Toronto, that was pretty much it for the positive highlights in this game, as Dallas’s first shot led to their first of four goals.

Steel stopped a shot from the point, but Logan Stankoven got his stick on the rebound and stuffed it under Woll. Woll squeezed his pads together and thought he had the puck covered, but it squeezed through his legs and trickled into the crease behind him. Stankoven reached around Woll and tapped the puck across the goal line.

The score remained tied at 1-1 until the 12:35 mark of the second period. After a cheap slashing call on John Tavares gave the Stars a power play, a one-timer from the point by Harley pinballed off Stankoven’s stick and Mavrik Bourque’s hip past Woll. Woll had no chance on the goal as the puck changed direction twice before getting by him.

The teams would go into the dressing rooms after two periods with the Stars up 2-1.

The Ugly: Duchene Ends Maple Leafs Hopes

Any chance Toronto had of coming back in the third period was quashed in less than three minutes. Again, on the power play, Matt Duchene made a nice forehand-to-backhand, back-to-forehand, between-the-legs shot to get the puck from Woll’s left to his right and tuck it in behind him. Just 1:48 after that, a Duchene shot from the bottom of the faceoff circle to Woll’s left hit Stankoven in the upper body and deflected up and over Woll’s shoulder into the goal.

That was pretty much it.

Other Maple Leafs Notes

Toronto had a power play late in the game, and Berube made good use of Toronto’s timeout to keep the first unit on the ice for the full two minutes, but they failed to score. They hit the post again, giving Toronto six posts in the game as Matthews Knies hit it twice on the same shift in the second period. Berube pulled Woll with just under two minutes left in the game, which was also good. Sure, the game was out of hand by then, but the idea was to try and win.

Rather than just playing it out, putting an extra attacker on the ice gives them practice in that situation and could also leave the players with a little better feeling coming out of the game if they did score a goal—or maybe two. An empty-net goal against means nothing to the Maple Leafs at that point. As it is, they did not score.

After backstopping the Maple Leafs to five straight wins and giving up two or fewer goals in four, Woll has given up nine goals in his last two starts. I would expect Berube to come right back with Woll against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday. Hopefully, he can get on a roll once again.

While Lorentz played a key role in Matthews’ goal, the experiment with him on the first line did not last the whole game. Berube tried several combinations late in the game to give the team more offense.

What’s Next for the Maple Leafs?

For Toronto, the loss was just their second three-game losing streak in the past three years. They are still in first place in the Atlantic Division, one point up on the Florida Panthers with the same number of games played.

The team has three challenging games coming up in the next six days. On Thursday, they are at home against the Devils, who are a point ahead of them in the Eastern Conference. On Saturday, they take a trip down the 401 to Montreal to take on the red-hot Canadiens. The Habs are 9-2-1 in their last 12 games. They return home to take on the always-tough Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night.