New rule trips up Simon Benoit amid Maple Leaf penalty woes

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Craig Berube’s crusade against his Maple Leafs taking needless penalties goes on, but he cut defenceman Simon Benoit some slack on the first of his two minors on Saturday night. 

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Benoit caught up to Pittsburgh’s Cody Glass, who was alone on the right side trying to break to the net, and lunged to successfully stick-check him, but when Glass went down, referee Dan O’Rourke’s arm went up. 

Benoit, Berube, the Leafs bench and the Scotiabank Arena crowd were livid. During the ensuing timeout, O’Rourke went to the box to speak to Benoit. 

“I thought by getting to the puck first and then diving, it was fine,” Benoit said. “But I guess the ref told me they changed the rule. If I leave my feet and the guy falls, that’s an automatic two minutes. I wasn’t aware.” 

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Berube had thought the tripping call was a clean defensive play. 

“I didn’t like the call on Benny (Benoit),” he said. “The other ones were penalties (Benoit’s high stick at the end of a game-long battle with Michael Bunting, Max Pacioretty’s hook and Bobby McMann crashing into Pens goalie Joel Blomqvist). We have to be better. We can’t take those.” 

Benoit and Bunting just missed each other playing in Toronto, the former arriving last year after new general manager Brad Treliving decided to let Bunting walk as a free agent to Carolina. But as an agitating forward, Bunting is the exact kind of foe a physical defender such as Benoit feels duty bound to deal with, even though Bunting’s a master at drawing penalties. 

“He’s good at his job.” conceded Benoit. “I’ve played against him a couple of years now. That’s part of his game. I just don’t like divers.” 

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The Leafs have taken 14 penalties through three games, second highest in the NHL to Boston as of Sunday afternoon, and have killed 11 with the Penguins striking while Benoit was off for his trip. Benoit has four minors to himself. 

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But there are a bunch of zeroes in Toronto’s own power-play column after three more blanks on Saturday brought it to 0-for-9. During the last chance versus the Pens, Berube promoted Oliver Ekman-Larsson for Morgan Rielly at the point on the first unit after Matthew Knies and Max Pacioretty moved up from the second unit with John Tavares missing the game due to illness. 

After many recalled late coach Pat Quinn used to complain that his talented Leafs team tried to “pass it into the net” on power plays, Berube repeated the very same phrase this week in urging a more direct assault at the goalmouth with shots and rebounds. 

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“We’ve got to simplify it,” agreed winger William Nylander. “It’s early in the season, we’ll get clicking, I’m not worried about that.” 

“We can’t get frustrated,” added winger Mitch Marner. “I thought we did a better job with entries (Saturday). We did have looks and second opportunities that didn’t fall our way.” 

THAT OTHER NYLANDER BROTHER

Alex Nylander has already stated the road from the Marlies to join brother William at Scotiabank Arena won’t be easy.

But a two-goal game Sunday in the farm team’s 4-1 win over the San Diego Gulls at Coca-Cola Coliseum is a a good sign.

“He’s dangerous when he has time and space,” Marlies coach John Gruden said. “He has the ability to put pucks in and he’s done that for awhile now.”

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While Alex didn’t generate much offence in his brief NHL exhibition action for the Leafs, he did have a strong finish to last season with Columbus, before accepting an AHL contract with the chance to live and train with William and work his up the Leaf ladder.

Roni Hirvonen and Alex Steeves (empty net) had the other Marlie goals, completing a weekend sweep to open their season. In net, 2020 Russian draft pick Artur Akhtyamov had a busy night making 37 saves for his first North American win.

LOOSE LEAFS 

The redesigned private dining area under the stands on the bench side of Scotiabank Arena is proving tricky to negotiate, even for the players. Bunting was trying to shortcut a quick post-game meeting with Marner and Auston Matthews, who were waiting between the rooms, but surprised them coming out the Toronto side of the new tunnel … Now that Matthews and Marner have passed Ron Ellis for sixth and seventh in Leafs career points (649 and 641 respectively), next on the list is George Armstrong at 713 … With Tavares out, Max Domi was 7-for-12 on faceoffs against the Pens, Nylander 4-for-6 … The Leafs had Sunday off and will resume practice for Wednesday’s visit by the Los Angeles Kings. 

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X: @sunhornby 

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