Preseason Game 52
Maple Leafs 4, Canadiens 2
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Centre Vidéotron, Québec, Québec

Andreas Johnsson scored and added two assists to power the Toronto Maple Leafs past the Montréal Canadiens 4-2 on Wednesday night in pre-season action.

Johnsson assisted on Andreas Borgman’s winner as well as Martin Marincin’s goal for Toronto (4-2-0). Connor Carrick also scored in the Maple Leafs’ three-goal second period. Curtis McElhinney made 29 saves for the win.

“The most important things are to play well in the system and work as hard as I can,” said Johnsson, a 22-year-old left-winger who spent all of last season with the American Hockey League’s Toronto Marlies.

Jonathan Drouin and Andrew Shaw, on the power play, built a 2-0 lead for Montréal (0-6-0) in the first period. Carey Price stopped 24 shots in net.

The game was held at Québec City’s Vidéotron Centre, with 14,452 fans in attendance.

The Maple Leafs won even though they had left all their big guns in Toronto and were facing a Canadiens’ lineup stacked with veterans including Drouin, Shaw, Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher, Alex Galchenyuk, Shea Weber and Price.

“The lineups can be a little misleading,” said McElhinney, “I give credit to those kids for coming out and working hard.”

Drouin and Shaw, who returned from injuries, were both playing in their second games of the pre-season and got three and four shots respectively on McElhinney.

The Marincin and Borgman goals were scored 99 seconds apart and gave the Maple Leafs a 3-2 lead heading into the second intermission.

The Canadiens and Maple Leafs each have two games left in the pre-season. Montréal hosts the Florida Panthers on Friday and the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.

Toronto plays a home-and-home series against the Red Wings — Friday in Detroit and Saturday in Toronto.

Story property of CBC, photo property of SB Nation

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BOXSCORE
1st Period
TOR PEN – 01:21 – Moore, slashing
MTL GOAL – 05:09 – Drouin (Weber, Gallagher)
MTL PEN – 05:16 – McCarron, fighting major
TOR PEN – 05:16 – Greening, fighting major
TOR PEN – 17:34 – Aaltonen, holding
MTL PP GOAL – 18:00 – Shaw
MTL PEN – 19:06 – Streit, tripping
MTL PEN – 19:40 – Davidson, hooking

2nd Period
TOR PP2 GOAL – 00:57 – Carrick (Rosen, Leivo)
TOR PEN – 09:26 – Fehr, tripping
TOR GOAL – 15:46 – Marincin (Johnsson, Smith)
TOR GOAL – 17:25 – Borgman (Johnsson, Fehr)
MTL PEN – 19:27 – Pacioretty, slashing

3rd Period
TOR PP GOAL – 01:22 – Johnsson (Greening, Brown)
TOR PEN – 14:39 – Grundstrom, interference
TOR PEN – 18:35 – Brown, delay of game

GOALTENDERS
TOR – McElhinney (W, 29-31), Sparks (0-0)
MTL – Price (L, 24-28)

SHOTS ON GOAL
TOR – 9+14+5 = 28
MTL – 5+10+16 = 31

ROSTERS
TOR – Goaltenders: Curtis McElhinney, Garret Sparks. Defence: Andreas Borgman, Connor Carrick, Travis Dermott, Justin Holl, Vincent LoVerde, Martin Marincin, Michael Paliotta, Calle Rosen. Forwards: Miro Aaltonen, Connor Brown, Richard Clune, Eric Fehr, Colin Greening, Carl Grundstrom, Andreas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen, Josh Leivo, Dominic Moore, Kerby Rychel, Ben Smith, Nikita Soshnikov, Dmytro Timashov.
MTL – Goaltenders: Zach Fucale, Carey Price. Defence: Brandon Davidson, Éric Gélinas, Victor Mete, Joe Morrow, Mark Streit, Shea Weber. Forwards: Paul Byron, Daniel Carr, Jacob de la Rose, Jonathan Drouin, Byron Froese, Alex Galchenyuk, Brendan Gallagher, Peter Holland, Michael McCarron, Torrey Mitchell, Max Pacioretty (C), Andrew Shaw, Chris Terry.