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Sundin, Tucker, Toskala spark Maple Leafs

Feb 26, 2008 - 5:09 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- Captain Mats Sundin wants to remain in Toronto. The Maple Leafs are glad to have him.

Sundin scored his 26th goal of the season, Darcy Tucker added two tallies and an assist and Vesa Toskala made 31 saves for his third shutout of the campaign as the Maple Leafs posted an impressive 5-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Monday.

Defenseman Pavel Kubina and Dominic Moore also scored and Matt Stajan collected three assists for Toronto, which has won three straight meetings with Ottawa and four of five games overall.

"We played a good hockey game tonight, and I think to a man, everyone played well," Tucker said. "(Toskala) made some big saves and our defense and penalty kill kept them off the board. And we scored three power-play goals. I'd say that's a pretty good night."

Ottawa, which won 16 of its first 19 games this season, has gone 6-9-2 over its last 17 games.

"It seems like we haven't played well for a long time," Senators center Mike Fisher said. "Losing like that tonight is embarrassing. We definitely got outworked. Our specialty teams were pretty bad and we left our goaltender out to dry a few times. There's not much more you can say."

Sundin, who recently announced he would not waive his no-trade clause as Tuesday's NHL deadline approaches, began the onslaught at 8:19 of the first period. After Tomas Kaberle kept the puck in the offensive zone at the left point, the All-Star defenseman fired a pass to Sundin, who redirected it past goaltender Ray Emery for a power-play goal.

That proved to be all the offensive support needed by Toskala, who turned aside 11 shots in the first period, six in the second and 14 in the third en route to his 11th career shutout. The Finn was making his 15th consecutive start for the Maple Leafs.

"I made a couple of good saves and felt very comfortable," Toskala said. "But the team played very well and scored lots of goals, so it made my job much easier."

"He tends to make some of those saves look easier than they are, but I think you're seeing that he's rounding into a No. 1 goaltender in this league, and more importantly, a No. 1 goaltender in Toronto," Maple Leafs coach Paul Maurice said. "He has the right makeup, and I think that's starting to show."

In the waning moments, Toskala nearly lost his shutout bid as he was caught out of position. But Kaberle stepped in front of Fisher's shot at a wide-open net to keep Ottawa off the scoreboard.

"He made a good save to keep the shutout, which is a nice bonus," Toskala said. "But obviously, the two points are the most important thing."

Tucker doubled the lead at 6:21 of the middle period, beating Emery with a wrist shot from the high slot off a pass from Jason Blake during another man advantage.

Less than 2 1/2 minutes later, Tucker fed Kubina, who unleashed a wrister from the blue line that got past a screened Emery to give the Maple Leafs a 2-0 bulge.

Tucker completed his third two-goal performance of the season with 7:46 remaining in the second.

From the right faceoff circle, Blake dished to Stajan in the slot. Stajan lost possession, but the puck went directly to Tucker, who knocked it past Emery from the doorstep for another power-play goal.

"Contributing two goals towards the win was great, but the hat trick wasn't really on my mind," said Tucker, who has yet to record a three-goal game in 795 career games. "I told the guys going into the third period that we should be working hard to make sure we get the two points and get the shutout for (Toskala)."

The Maple Leafs finished 3-for-4 with the man advantage.

"Hopefully, we'll get a little confidence boost from this game," Toskala said. "Our power play was very good, and we've been struggling a little bit with it, so it's good to see the guys scoring like they did tonight on the power play."

"Our power play and our penalty-killing was near perfect," said Maurice, whose team kept the Senators scoreless on four power-play opportunities. "We were undermanned coming into this game, but special teams was absolutely the difference."

Moore capped the scoring with 2:25 left in the period, carrying the puck down the slot before slipping a backhander between Emery's pads for his fourth goal of the season.

Emery made just 16 saves over two periods before being replaced at the start of the third. Martin Gerber stopped all six shots he faced in the final 20 minutes for Ottawa, which had won the first three meetings of the season with Toronto.

"It's tough when you get outworked the way we did tonight," Senators defenseman Chris Phillips said. "If you lose 5-0 but play your best, you can hold your head up high. But that wasn't the case for us tonight, and that's disappointing."