Campbell, Leafs blank Vegas

In Toronto, the Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews scored two second period goals on Tuesday night to quash any thought of a Vegas Golden Knights rally.

Those two goals gave the Leafs a 3-0 lead en route to a 4-0 win over Vegas.

“Just a really complete effort from the start to finish,” Matthews said. “Just really good energy, and I don’t think we gave them too much around our net with opportunities. [Jack Campbell] played unbelievable, and so I think that’s an ideal display of hockey that we’d like to play, being as consistent as we were tonight.”

Campbell made 26 saves for the Maple Leafs in the shutout.

“That was awesome. It was great to be a part of and great to see everybody playing their game, getting rewarded and getting a big two points,” Campbell said. “I just thought our start and the way we played for the whole 60 minutes, that always gives you a lot of confidence when we start that way and get on the scoreboard early.”

Vegas dropped to 4-5-0.

“We weren’t very good,” the Golden Knights’ Brayden McNabb said. “They played better than us, obviously, and we didn’t generate very much, especially at the start. Then we got down and couldn’t generate much either. It was a pretty frustrating game.”

Mitchell Marner staked the Maple Leafs to a 1-0 lead in the first period.

“I thought right from the start we took control of the game and maintained that all the way through,” Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We were good on special teams and our goaltending was good too, that was certainly more indicative of what we are capable of.”

William Nylander added a goal early in the third period for the 4-0 final.

Robin Lehner made 29 saves in the Vegas loss.

“That wasn’t close to good enough,” Lehner said. “Probably the worst one we’ve had since I came to Vegas. We didn’t have much, they had way too much. They’re a very skilled team over there but we are not going to make excuses for having a lot of guys out. All teams go through it but we can’t get outworked like we did today. We had a pretty good game plan, we’d won three in a row, but for some reason we just weren’t where we needed to be.”