In Auston Matthews‘ return to the Toronto Maple Leafs’ lineup Wednesday night, it took him all of 30 seconds to get his legs back and his game back.
Matthews struck for two goals in a 5-3 win over the visiting San Jose Sharks.
“After the first I felt terrible; second period, I didn’t feel too good, and I think in the third period I finally got my legs under me and I was kind of skating out there a little bit more,” Matthews said. “That’s kind of expected with that first game back. It’s tough to get into game shape when you’re just in practice.”
Frederik Andersen made 38 saves in win over Sharks Wednesday – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Not to be out done, John Tavares scored twice as well.
“I don’t know if we skated as good as we normally skate,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said. “We have good players and found a way to play good enough and win. It was a big win for us against a good team.”
Frederik Andersen made 38 saves to get the win as the Leafs improved to 18-8-0.
Tomas Hertl, Joe Pavelski and Melker Karlsson scored for the Sharks.
“Yes, we got away from how we needed to play, we didn’t play the way we needed to,” Logan Couture said. “We played it in spurts. I thought a large part of the second period we did [what we needed to]. I thought we played well in the second half of the game and generated a lot of opportunities but too many easy goals for them.”
Patrick Marleau added a single marker in the win for the Leafs.
“They have a good power play, for sure,” Pavelski said. “You’ve got to stay out of the box against them and play them 5-on-5. When we did that we were very successful tonight.”
[WATCH: All Sharks vs. Maple Leafs highlights]
Aaron Dell made 24 saves in the loss, their third straight
“I think we understand, the 25-game mark you have a good feel for your team, and you should. When [coach] Peter [DeBoer] first got here it took 40 to 50 games, and we’ve got some big pieces here and a lot of new faces so we’ll keep building, keep working towards finding it a little bit better,” Pavelski said after the loss.
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