In Toronto, the spiraling decent of the Vancouver Canucks continued on Saturday night in a dreadful, 5-1, loss to the Maple Leafs.
Auston Matthews collected two more goals in his hot start to the season.
“We were just consistent throughout the whole game,” Matthews said. “We didn’t have any big lapses. They had their chances, but we really stuck with our structure and forced them to the outside for a full 60 minutes, so I think it was a really solid game for us.”
The Leafs improved to to 9-2-1.
“Vancouver had their pushes, but I did like our start, we knew that was going to be really important tonight,” Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We wanted to establish our game, and I thought we were able to do that. Vancouver pushed back pretty hard in the last seven or eight minutes of the first period, but we were able to extend our lead in the second, which was really important.”
Frederik Andersen made 27 saves in the relatively easy win.
“I’ve seen that goal a couple of times when he was with the Philadelphia Flyers but that was really impressive to see with my own eyes tonight,” Marner said.
Brock Boeser scored the lone Canucks goal with just over two minutes left in the game to break up the shutout bid.
“They have a quick team, they’re a good team,” Canucks head coach Travis Green said. “They deserved to win tonight. They played better than we did. They were quicker. They made more plays than we did, completed more passes than we did.”
Vancouver dropped to 6-9-0 on their fourth straight loss.
Wayne Simmonds scored two of his own goals for the Maple Leafs.
“He (Matthews) does [do things that surprise me] but I think that speaks to his ability and how special he is,” Keefe said. “That goal, it happened so fast that I don’t think anybody on the ice was really ready for it, just how quickly he went from going around a defender to putting it in the net. All season he’s been really good for us, but these last two games, he’s really had jump.”
Zach Hyman added a single marker to the winner’s scoresheet.
Braden Holtby made 26 saves in the loss.
“When you have a bad game you’ve got to come out flying and be ready to play right from the start,” Holtby said. “You never know if you’re going to win or lose. But you need a response, and we don’t have that yet. We’ve got to get on the same page. We’re a disconnected group right now and it’s showing. It’s frustrating. If we want to be a good team we’ve got to have everyone pulling the same rope. And that’s what we work towards from now on.”
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