An unlikely hero

Defenceman Martin Marincin picked the right time to hit the scoresheet.

After being the odd-man out on Toronto's blueline more often than not this season, Marincin scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period as the Maple Leafs hung on to beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-2 on Saturday.

Marincin entered the night with four career goals in 223 games before potting just his second since 2016-17 to help Toronto go up five points on the Florida Panthers for third in the Atlantic Division.
"I was so, so happy. First goal this season, so I was excited for that," said the 28-year-old playing in his 23rd game of the season. "It's not my role [to score] but I like it. I can do it. I have to be more active."

Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe, who also coached Marincin with the American Hockey League's Toronto Marlies, wasn't as surprised as many in the Scotiabank Arena to see him score.
"Got to love the initiative of Marty to finish it," said Keefe. "He takes a lot of heat around here, up and down [to the minors] but when you call upon him he gives you everything he has and it's all you can ask for."

The Maple Leafs (35-23-8) won four-of-five contests to close out February.
The Canucks (34-24-6) entered six points behind the first-place Vegas Golden Knights in the Pacific and failed to create any space ahead of the teams chasing them in a tight Western Conference.
"We're still good in standings but we got to win games, got to get points," said Canucks star Elias Pettersson, who was held scoreless with no shots on net in 21 minutes of ice time.
"I'm not playing my best hockey right now.

"I want to be better. ... We like to score goals. We just have to find a way to win."
Both goalies had rough starts by combining to allow four goals on seven shots in the first 11 minutes of the game before settling in to turn away the following 48-of-49.

Frederik Andersen made his seventh straight start for Toronto and stopped 25 shots. Vancouver's Thatcher Demko, in net for an injured Jacob Markstrom, finished with 26 saves

While the stars get a lot of the spotlight for the Toronto Maple Leafs, players like Zach Hyman and Kasperi Kapanen continue to draw praise for their play lately.

Despite missing well over a month in his recovery from off-season knee surgery, Hyman is one goal away from matching his career-high and has 36 points in 46 games. It also doesn’t hurt that Hyman has a career-high 20.4 shooting percentage.

 In past seasons, Hyman was given this reputation that he was benefitting from playing with either Auston Matthews and John Tavares but it’s hard to make that argument. Instead, everyone is wondering how the Leafs can find more players like Hyman.

This is where Kapanen comes in. Of course, both have different roles and styles but what Kapanen has shown lately is that he’s not afraid to provide the much-needed chippiness this team doesn’t always play with. He has also shown that he is willing to stand up for his teammates too.
It all started against the Pittsburgh Penguins when Kapanen fought Jared McCann after challenging Patric Hornqvist for hitting Rasmus Sandin then challenged MAcKenzie Weeegar after he hit Travis Dermott.

Kasperi Kapanen will need to score seven more goals to surpass the 20 tallies he had in his first full season but he has a similar shooting percentage and has seen a decrease in ice time as well. It doesn’t help that he was disciplined for showing up late to practice.

It appears the message was received loud and clear and maybe knowing that he wasn’t being moved at the trade deadline was an added relief. Now he can just focus on playing and producing in the way the team expected when he signed a three-year extension.

As long as Kapanen and Hyman can provide that secondary element that the team doesn’t have and play a pivotal role on the team’s penalty kill, it should help Toronto down the road.