Leafs keep rolling to post-season with win over Devils on record-setting night
TORONTO — These were the games, Mike Babcock said, that good teams found a way to win and indeed, his emerging Toronto Maple Leafs did just that on a record-setting Thursday night.
Playing on the second half of a back-to-back against one of the worst teams in the NHL, the Leafs managed to pull out their seventh win in the last nine games (7-1-1), a 4-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils. The win gave Toronto (85 points) a three-point cushion over Boston (82) for the third playoff spot in the Atlantic Division with a game in hand.
The Leafs, who beat Columbus on Wednesday night, are only five points back of Ottawa (88) for second.
“I think you have to learn how to win these games over and over again,” Babcock said of the win over the Devils, who haven’t won on the road since Feb. 4. “You just expect it. It doesn’t matter if it’s back-to-back. It doesn’t matter where you played. It doesn’t matter who you play. You expect to win.”