GAME SUMMARIES
Updated: Saturday February 27, 1999 11:59PM EST
Saturday February 27, 1999 Florida at Toronto
The Russian Rocket was grounded on his first flight at the Air Canada Centre. Pavel Bure was held without a goal for only the third time this season as the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Florida Panthers 4-1 Saturday night behind three second-period goals.
"Efforts like that is why teams don't make the playoffs," said Florida coach Terry Murray, whose team is battling Boston for the final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. "They (the Maple Leafs) looked like they had us confused at times."
There was no confusing the excellent job Alexander Karpovtsev and company did on Bure, who had only one shot in the first two periods and missed on two good chances at goalie Curtis Joseph during a third-period power play.
"(Karpovtsev) played a real good game," said Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn. "(Former Ranger coach) Colin Campbell told me the other night that he'd always play him (against) Lindros and he'd always come up with a big game."
The sellout crowd of 18,800 had a good time booing Bure whenever he had the puck and cheering enthusiastically whenever he lost it.
"They didn't do anything special against me," said Bure, who had eight goals in his previous five road games.
Alyn McCauley, Mike Johnson and Todd Warriner scored in an 8:40 span of the second period for Toronto, which improved to 2-0-1 in the new home at the Air Canada Centre and 34-21-5 overall.
Igor Korolev added a late third-period goal. Mats Sundin and Alexander Karpovtsev both had a pair of assists.
Viktor Kozlov scored for the Panthers (22-22-16), who had scored 17 goals in their previous three games.
McCauley opened the scoring 3:29 into the second period when he ripped a shot past Sean Burke off a pass from Mike Johnson from behind the net.
McCauley, who missed 22 games with a knee injury, went hard into the boards early in the third after being hooked by Panthers defenseman Jaroslav Spacek on a 2-on-1. It took a couple minutes before McCauley got back to his feet.
"I was a little worried when I went in, but it was alright," McCauley said. "We didn't want to let them back in the game and I don't think we relaxed at all in the third period."
Johnson scored the Maple Leafs' first power-play goal in 11 chances at the Air Canada Centre, also known as The Hangar, with a tip-in of a wrist shot by Alexander Karpovtsev from the point at 10:41 of the second.
Warriner, who lost the second-line center role when McCauley returned, made it 3-0 at 12:09 when he fought off his check and flipped a backhander past a sprawling Burke.
Steve Thomas suffered back spasms in the second period and left the game, ending his points streak at 10 games.
"It's just a small back spasm," Thomas said. "I should be ready for the next game."
Thursday February 25, 1999 Toronto at Ny Islanders
The Toronto Maple Leafs are approaching elite status in the NHL.
Ten Maple Leafs registered a point, while goalie Glenn Healy turned aside 27 shots as Toronto beat the New York Islanders 4-1 Thursday night.
"Healy played a really solid game," Toronto coach Pat Quinn said. "Our defense was also pretty good tonight."
Toronto was looking to keep pace with Ottawa, which leads the Maple Leafs by three points in the Northeast Division, and did so by scoring twice in the final minute of the first period.
Mats Sundin scored with 26.4 seconds left for a 1-0 lead. Racing down the right side, Sundin tapped Steve Sullivan's cross-ice pass past goalie Tommy Salo.
"That was a beautiful feed that Sullivan gave to Mats," Quinn said.
Then with 8.9 seconds left in the period, Sergei Berezin scored the winner. Salo misplayed a blast from the left circle and the puck trickled through his pads into the net.
"When you play 19 decent minutes and let one minute go away, you're going to lose," Islanders coach Bill Stewart said after a closed-door, 28-minute team meeting.
New York, which had only one shot in the first 16 minutes and three overall in the period, took 14 shots at Healy in the second period. The only one to get by was Ted Donato's power-play screen shot.
But any hope of an Islanders comeback ended 67 seconds later when Tomas Kaberle sent a wrist shot through Salo's pads.
Toronto iced the game at 15:28 when Tie Domi came out of the penalty box for a breakaway off Mike Johnson's perfect pass. Domi skated right up to the crease and took a backhander. The puck hit Salo's right pad and rolled over it into the net.
"We played a solid first period before the two goals," Salo said. "I think maybe I should have had the third."
Toronto got a bit sloppy late in the game, which didn't please Quinn.
"I didn't like the way we played the third period too much," Quinn said. "When you didn't have to let a team back in, we were trying to do that. Fortunately, we kept the (three-goal) spread."
The Maple Leafs have more points in 58 games this season than they did in all 82 games last season (71 to 69). Quinn said his team is making progress.
"They didn't make changes here not to get better," Quinn said. "Some good things are happening. We hope the success we've had will make us even better to make us a playoff-style club."
The Islanders have no playoff style. It appears they will miss the postseason for the fifth straight year. Their 18-35-7 record is their worst through 60 games since their inaugural season, 1972-73.
Stewart's closed-door session addressed that issue.
"We have 22 games left in the season," Donato said. "Where do we go from here?"
Former Islander and current Maple Leaf Derek King understands the frustration all too well.
"They're struggling like we were last year," King said. "Last year, it was all in the style we were playing _ everyone was on edge. This year, we're more relaxed and allowed to use our talents to help us win games."
The game marked Leafs defenseman Bryan Berard's first against his former team.
"I thought that tonight would be a lot worse than it was," said Berard, who was traded for goaltender Felix Potvin. "The biggest thing was seeing faces like Ziggy (Zigmund Palffy) coming down on you, but otherwise, it was just another game."