{"id":544135,"date":"2026-03-18T08:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T08:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/544135\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T08:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T08:32:08","slug":"schenn-scores-1st-with-islanders-who-top-maple-leafs-for-4th-win-in-5-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/544135\/","title":{"rendered":"Schenn scores 1st with Islanders, who top Maple Leafs for 4th win in 5 games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Schaefer<\/a>,\u00a0who grew up about 50 miles southwest of Toronto in the Hamilton, Ontario, area, had an assist\u00a0for the Islanders (39-24-5), who are 4-1-0 in their past five games.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust seeing friends, family, some teachers were in the building tonight, too,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cI always talk to all the teachers back at (my old school). I\u2019ll definitely go visit back there if I\u2019m there back in time, but hopefully we can\u2019t because we\u2019re in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mathew Barzal<\/a> had three assists, Calum Ritchie<\/a> had a goal and an assist, and Ilya Sorokin<\/a>\u00a0made 26 saves for the Islanders, who are tied for second in the Metropolitan Division with the Pittsburgh Penguins, two points ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n

“Everyone’s winning games, including us,\u201d Barzal said. \u201cSo, that’s just the race it is this year, and we just got to keep pace and hopefully push the pace. And we were looking at the score in the intermission — I think Columbus probably won — so every game is so big right now, it’s fun. That’s the best part about this, this time of year, every game just means a little more. And every play, means a little more. The power play, it means a little more. This is what you play for.”<\/p>\n

Steven Lorentz<\/a> scored, and Joseph Woll<\/a>\u00a0made 31 saves for the Maple Leafs (29-28-12), who were 2-0-1 in their previous three.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight, not enough (offense),\u201d Toronto coach Craig Berube said. \u201cOur forecheck and how we got a lot pucks back, we have to do more with it, we didn\u2019t do enough with it to generate, and we didn\u2019t get to the net front. That\u2019s the bottom line, that\u2019s where it all start for me. If that goalie sees the puck, he\u2019s going to stop most of them. We didn\u2019t get to the net front and create some chaos and some second and third opportunities. That\u2019s the difference in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schenn put the Islanders up 1-0 while on the power play at 4:15 of the first period. Ritchie spun a no-look backhand pass to him at the side of the net for a shot from the right hash marks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ritchie then made it 2-0 on another power play at 9:43. He took a pass from\u00a0Barzal at the side of the net, spun in front and jammed in his own rebound.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old forward, who is from\u00a0Oakville, Ontario, was also playing his first\u00a0NHL game in Toronto like Schaefer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey made a couple nice plays, it\u2019s a tough play to defend when they\u2019re doing that little pop guy down low,\u201d Woll said. \u201cHe made a nice play on one, they get a fortunate bounce on the other. Our kill has been pretty dialed all year so you\u2019re going to have bounces that go either way. That\u2019s really what it was tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Schaefer,\u00a0who grew up about 50 miles southwest of Toronto in the Hamilton, Ontario, area, had an assist\u00a0for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-544135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}