Although the Wings fought back, it wasn't enough as the high-powered Leafs took a 6-3 victory at Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night.
Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Tatar and Jonathan Ericsson scored for the Wings.
Auston Matthews, Connor Brown, Morgan Rielly (power play) and William Nylander (empty net) had the other Toronto goals.
1. Jimmy Howard/Petr Mrazek: There are a lot of goaltenders who have had trouble with Toronto's potent offense. The Maple Leafs scored four goals on their first five shots of the game, including the first shot against Jimmy Howard, who started, and the first shot against Petr Mrazek, who came in after the Leafs scored their third goal. Howard had one save on four shots while Mrazek had 19 saves on 21 shots.
Quotable: "I think there was some kind of funny goals. I don't know that that was all on them. I think some of it is it's one of those nights where it just kind of goes in for them. Obviously I thought we did tons of good stuff and had lots of moments, especially in the first when we carried the play. It just seemed that everything they threw at the net went in. You can't say that's always goaltending. Sometimes that's just how it goes." - Wings coach Jeff Blashill
Quotable II: "You have to be ready. As a second goalie, you have to be ready on the bench. But yeah, it's never easy to go in. You're cold and they're playing fast, they're playing hard. After the goal they get momentum, so you have to go in there and try as best as you can. You could see the first shot went in. It went through three or four guys and off the post. After that I think we played really well." - Mrazek
2. Challenges: Jonathan Ericsson is not an offensive defenseman like Mike Green. But he put a rocket of a shot past Toronto goaltender Curtis McElhinney at 8:36 of the second. The goal was immediately waved off as the officials believed Justin Abdelkader, screening in front, had interfered with McElhinney. The Wings challenged the call and after the review, they overturned it and the goal counted, cutting the Toronto lead to 4-3. It was Ericsson's first goal since the Centennial Classic on Jan. 1 against these Maple Leafs. The Wings tried another challenge when the Leafs scored on the power play at 12:57 of the second for goaltender interference, but this time the call did not go their way.
Quotable: "It's a judgment call, I'm never convinced of anything. Those are judgment calls. You have to understand. You understand this, there's tons of different refs in the league, everyone's got their own kind of view on it. If you think it's close as a coach, you got to challenge it because you just never know what the read's going to be from the referee's part. I get it, they're hard calls to make. Both of them I thought had opportunities. I thought the one that did go our way could go our way and the one that didn't go our way could have went our way. You just never know." - Blashill
Quotable II: "I thought I was out of the crease when I looked down. He had mentioned maybe right before that, so I wasn't sure if I got him before that. I thought I was out of the crease, so I thought it was a good goal but that's why we have the reviews." - Abdelkader
3. Nick Jensen: Nick Jensen came into the game with one assist in his first six games of the season. With the Wings down 2-0 on the Maple Leafs' first two shots of the game, Jensen tapped the puck to Henrik Zetterberg entering the Toronto zone. Zetterberg spun around the net and put in the wraparound at 12:10 of the first. In the second period, Tomas Tatar got his first goal of the season at 7:02 and Jensen got the second assist with Dylan Larkin getting the first helper. At 8:36, Jensen got the first assist and Larkin the second on Jonathan Ericsson's goal. It is the first three-point game of Jensen's career.
Quotable: "It felt pretty good. We fought our back and then unfortunately they got a fifth one and kind of deflated us a little bit. We pushed all the way to the end and that's what we've got to bring with us." - Zetterberg
