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Leafs goalie Curtis McElhinney tries to cover up the puck during a scramble in front of the net in Toronto on Tuesday.Tom Szczerbowski

It wasn't perfect, but it was what the Toronto Maple Leafs needed.

Their defence held together for the last two periods, and their offensive game was there when it was needed. The result was a 3-1 win over the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night to kick off a four-game homestand.

Even better, Leafs backup goaltender Curtis McElhinney was solid in winning his second game since joining the team on Jan. 10. There is now hope he can provide the necessary rest for No. 1 goaltender Frederik Andersen, who is showing signs of wear in the dog days of the NHL season.

"I felt confident the whole game," said McElhinney, who faced 40 shots. "It was a lot of fun."

Also on the plus side was the fact the youthful Leafs looked fresh in playing the second leg of a back-to-back, away-and-home set. They looked much better than Monday night when they lost 6-5 in overtime to the New York Islanders.

"The back-to-back thing doesn't mean much to us," said Leafs defenceman Jake Gardiner, who bounced back from a poor outing Monday with a goal and an assist. "You've got to have fresh legs and we showed that."

Earlier on Tuesday, Leafs head coach Mike Babcock pleaded with his players to adopt at least some semblance of defence after surrendering 11 goals in their past two games and 22 in the last four. Of course, the Leafs scored 11 goals in their previous two games, a 6-5 overtime loss to the New York Islanders and a 6-5 win over the Boston Bruins, which gave them three of a possible four points.

So maybe even Babcock knew the youthful Leafs were probably not paying attention when he pointed out that dancing around offensively, as they did in their previous game against the Stars a week ago, may be fun but not when you still lose. That game in Dallas was part of a three-game losing streak that led into the Boston win, and all featured sloppy defensive play.

"We were terrible in our own zone, at our net and through the neutral zone without the puck," Babcock said of the overtime loss to the Islanders on Monday. "Any time we feel space, like against Dallas [on Jan. 31], when we feel space offensively and then [Monday] night with the Islanders we feel space offensively and everyone gets feeling good, we get dancing around and life is great.

"We think we're the eighties Oilers and then bang, bang, bang, we just yell at the goalie, 'Here they come again, here they come again, here they come again.' It's fun. I actually think the players are having fun. I think the crowd is having fun, and we leave pissed off every night. So why don't we just play right?"

After the first period, it did not look like the Leafs had heard anything Babcock said. They were still playing it loose defensively, such as when the defence pair of Jake Gardiner and Connor Carrick allowed the Stars a three-on-one rush midway through the period. This resulted in sustained pressure in the Leafs end, but they escaped with nothing worse than Dallas centre Adam Cracknell hitting the post.

By the end of the period, the Stars held a 16-10 edge in shots and a 28-18 advantage in attempted shots. The difference was that McElhinney was solid in goal and their forwards were playing well at the other end of the ice against a Dallas defence that is every bit as wobbly as Toronto's.

So the Leafs escaped the first period with a 1-0 lead that came on a slick faceoff play. Tyler Bozak won the draw in the Dallas zone and kicked the puck to Mitch Marner. He relayed it to Gardiner at the point, and Gardiner fired a 60-foot rocket past Dallas goaltender Antti Niemi.

The tide actually turned late in the period when Leaf centre Nazem Kadri took two penalties for hooking and cross-checking. The Leafs killed off two minutes at the end of the first period and the remaining two minutes to start the second.

That led to a much stronger effort defensively in the second period. The Leafs were far from perfect but they held the Stars to seven shots and took 17 themselves. They also increased their lead to 2-0 when Auston Matthews deflected a Gardiner shot past Niemi for his 25th goal of the season.

The thing is, even a team as young as the Leafs has to know it is playing with fire if it tries to get by with offensive flash and a modicum of defence à la the eighties Oilers. It may work with so-so teams like Dallas that are willing to play river hockey, but elite NHL teams today are simply too disciplined to allow it.

"I think it comes down to a simple decision," Babcock said. "Do you want to win or not? I don't like to feed my family on hope. I like to feed my family on know. I like to know what we're doing.

"Now, we can come down and it's like going to Vegas – you can gamble or you can play right. You're still going to score just as much. Some people don't believe that, but I believe that if you play right defensively you score more."

Just in case the Leafs weren't paying attention, the Stars got their attention in the third period. Tyler Seguin cut the Leafs' lead to 2-1 with a power-play goal four minutes in. When the Stars gave them a five-on-three power play, the Leafs seized the opportunity. Leafs defenceman Nikita Zaitsev scored to restore the Leafs' two-goal lead. Then they shut down the Stars the rest of the way, with the final blow a nice job killing a late penalty taken by Carrick.

"I thought our defence was solid," Babcock said. "We were a little more organized, a little more determined than [Monday] night."

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