March 4, 2013

Phil Kessel battles with Henrik Tallinder on Monday night at the Air Canada Centre. (Ernest Doroszuk/QMI Agency)

TORONTO - Victories don't always provide valuable lessons.

But Randy Carlyle hopes his Maple Leafs can learn from what looked like was going to happen, but didn't, in an eventual 4-2 victory against the New Jersey Devils on Monday night.

“I don’t think we are going to be able to sneak out of a game and feel as good as we do tonight if we only play 20 minutes of solid hockey,” Carlyle said. “There is lots of room on this team to improve.”

A 60-minute effort usually leads to a win. The Leafs got the same result with a third of that.