Matthews’ hat trick and Marner’s shootout winner give Leafs the opening night win after a back-and-forth contest.
Auston Matthews’ hat trick, which included two goals in a 3:26 span in the third period, kickstarted the Leafs’ comeback as they defeated the Montreal Canadiens 6-5 in a shootout at home on opening night.
Despite the win, it wasn’t all pretty for the Leafs, who found themselves down early.
Three minutes into the game, 33-year-old Leafs’ defenceman T.J. Brodie tumbled over his own feet while receiving a pass at the offensive blue line, misplaying the puck right to Montreal’s Jake Evans. Evans, who only scored two goals last season, took advantage of the opportunity and dashed down the ice on a breakaway burying the game’s opening goal over the glove of Leafs’ netminder Ilya Samsonov.
In the second period, the Habs quickly added a second to their tally after a poor decision by Leafs’ defenceman Jake McCabe.
Just over a minute into the period, the 30-year-old elected to pinch below the goal line in an attempt to keep the cycle going and to continue putting pressure on the Montreal defenders. However, McCabe bobbled the puck resulting in the Canadiens going on a three-on-one break the other way. A sweet tic-tac-toe play from Kirby Dach to 2022 first-overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky found the tape of Alex Newhook who buried his first as a Montreal Canadien. Newhook’s goal gave Montreal the 2-0 lead.
Moments later, David Kampf was penalized for a weak hooking penalty 200 feet from his net, giving Montreal their second powerplay of the game. On the ensuing man advantage, Cole Caufield’s one-timer sailed over a diving Samsonov for Montreal’s third goal of the game.
However, head coach Sheldon Keefe decided to challenge the goal for offside, and upon further review, Keefe’s challenge was deemed successful as the goal was disallowed as Caufield was offside entering the zone.
The successful challenge was the fuel that ignited the Leafs’ offence.
Minutes after the disallowed goal, the fourth line for Toronto got them on the board first. Noah Gregor, fresh off signing a one-year contract with the Leafs on Oct. 10th after his professional tryout (PTO) contract expired, found himself in space as he ripped a shot past a sliding Jake Allen cutting the deficit to one.
Things quickly spiralled out of control for Montreal as goal scorer Newhook was then called for a tripping call in the offensive zone. The penalty gave the second-ranked powerplay from a season ago an opportunity to tie the game – and they did just that.
After William Nylander rung one off the post to start the powerplay, the puck ricocheted to Matthews who sent a rocket past a sprawling Allen to level the game at two apiece. Matthews’ goal was the 300th of his career, becoming the 10th fastest player in NHL history to reach that milestone.
Four minutes later, another Montreal penalty in the offensive zone gave Toronto an opportunity to close out the period with a third goal. John Klingberg, quarterback of the Leafs’ top powerplay unit, gifted Nylander the puck at the top of the circle as the Swede zipped it past Allen to head into the intermission up 3-2.
Momentum from the dominant end to the second period carried over to start the third. The Leafs began the final frame with relentless pressure in the Montreal defensive zone tiring out the Canadiens.
On back-to-back shifts, the Bertuzzi-Matthews-Marner line generated glorious scoring chances as the trio started to find chemistry. The Leafs’ top line ended the game with a combined 15 shots on net and a very high expected goals-for percentage (xGF%) of 77 per cent, according to Natural Stat Trick.
When everything was going the Leafs’ way, Tyler Bertuzzi was called for an unnecessary and avoidable penalty as he jabbed at Allen’s pads after the whistle giving the Canadiens hope that, at the time, felt impossible to come by.
While shorthanded, a failed clearance attempt by Max Domi allowed Montreal to retain offensive zone possession leading to Newhook’s second of the game after deflecting Arber Xhekaj’s point shot past Samsonov.
Five minutes later, Timothy Liljegren whiffed on the puck in the defensive zone, passing it right to Montreal’s Rafael Harvey-Pinard who fed Jesse Ylonen in front of the net for the fifth Canadiens goal of the night.
Despite the drastic turn of events, the Leafs continued fighting, searching for the comeback.
With the goalie pulled with just under five minutes left, a faceoff win ended up finding the stick of Matthews who surprised Allen with a low-percentage shot from the corner, scoring his second of the game to cut the deficit back to one.
Matthews then followed suit with another goal with the goalie pulled – his third of the night – to tie the game at five and force overtime.
In the extra frame, Allen came up huge with two of his 37 saves on the night, stopping Matthews and Matthew Knies from point-blank range. Allen’s spectacular goaltending kept Montreal in the game, forcing a shootout.
In the third round of the shootout, Mitch Marner scored the first and only goal of the shootout sealing the 6-5 comeback win for the Maple Leafs on home ice.
The schedules for both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens can be found at nhl.com/schedule.