That third period is the story, because San Jose has played it before. The preview's worry was that the Sharks keep letting go of leads late, coming off a Detroit game where the equalizer came with the goalie pulled. Monday wasn't a 6-on-5 collapse. It was slower than that: 1 goal in the 1st, nothing after, and a Toronto team that kept pushing until the game turned. San Jose finished the road swing through Nashville, Detroit and Toronto 1-2 and is 4-4-1.
Toronto did it without its 2 most notable absences. Tavares is out week to week and Tanev is still on IR, and the preview's question was whether a Leafs blue line without Tanev would give San Jose's young forwards room. It did for 1 period. After that, the Leafs held the Sharks scoreless for 40 minutes, which is a better answer than anyone expected from a lineup still shuffling bodies around.
The line score shows how lopsided the second half of the game was. Toronto went 0-1-2 by period and San Jose went 1-0-0. For the Sharks, the 2nd and 3rd periods matter more than the 1st right now. They've had stretches where they outplay good teams, and they can't turn those stretches into 60 minutes. Celebrini and Stenberg were the names the preview expected to go after Toronto's thin back end. However much they generated, it added up to 1 goal before the 1st intermission.
San Jose's last 5 are rough: 1-4, with 2 straight losses, and 2 of those losses ended 3-1, to Edmonton and now Toronto. Scoring 1 goal on the road at the end of a long trip isn't a surprise. Scoring 1 goal against a defense missing its best shutdown man is the part San Jose should worry about. For Toronto, the result ends the skid that started when Tavares went down, and it's the first win for this patched-up lineup.
The injury picture didn't change overnight. Toronto still has Tavares and Tanev out and Dakota Joshua conditioning in the AHL, and the team is still testing Tanev to see whether it's something longer. San Jose is still carrying only Quentin Musty and Kyle Keyser on non-roster IR. The Leafs are winning by committee for now. The Sharks are healthy, and their trouble is in the late periods, not the injury report.