In Toronto, the Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews hit for a hat trick in regulation, and scored the only goal in the skills portion of the evening’s affairs for a 6-5 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night.
“It was a bit of a roller coaster,” Matthews said. “I think it’s obviously nice to get the win and there’s a lot of things we can definitely clean up, just taking care of the puck, some turnover stuff, little awareness type of stuff we can definitely be better at. It’s easy to say it’s the first game, but it’s those habits you try to build early on in camp that you just want to clean up early.”
Matthews’ third goal was his 300th career NHL strike.
Ilya Samsonov made 19 saves in the win.
“Not fun game for the goalies, especially for the Toronto goalies,” Samsonov said. “… I try to forget about what’s going on, sometimes we have these games, it’s not too fun but it’s OK. We win, we have two points, so I’m so excited about the results.”
Jake Evans scored early in the first period to give Montreal a 1-0 lead.
Alex Newhook scored the first of his two on the night for a 2-0 lead to the Canadiens with 70 seconds gone in the middle frame.
“We were definitely emotionally challenged, and to me, that’s a big part of this league,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “Emotionally challenged in the second, emotionally challenged at the end of the third, but you learn for it. There’s nothing you can do. It’s done, let’s go.”
The Leafs got on the board at 7:46 of the second on a strike by Noah Gregor for a 2-1 score, and Matthews hit for his first at 14:51 for a 2-2 tie.
With 45 seconds left in the middle frame, William Nylander hit for a 3-2 lead to Toronto.
Cole Caufield hit off the power play at 4:25 of the third to knot the game at 3-3 for the Habs.
“We lost some life for sure, it was tough,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “… It was definitely a tough one, especially the nature of the way some of the goals were happening. You just feel like it’s not your night. I don’t know how many times we fell down or whiffed on the puck.”
Newhook picked up his second of the night to give the Canadiens a 4-3 lead.
Montreal stretched the lead to 5-3 on a marker from Jesse Ylonen at 11:55 of the third.
“We’re a young team, and [these are] some good learning lessons to go through on how to manage the highs and lows of the game,” Canadiens forward Kirby Dach said. “… You’re going up 3-0 and the goal gets called back, and we don’t know how to push back or answer after that. There’s emotional swings in the game, and we have to find ways to just keep moving forward and rolling the way we were rolling. We kind of took our foot off the gas pedal.”
Matthews scored twice in the final five minutes of regulation to force the extra session and skills competition.
Jake Allen made 37 saves in the Habs loss..
You must be logged in to post a comment.