TORONTO — Austin Matthews scored twice for the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 4-1 win against the Winnipeg Jets at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday.
“It’s a big win for us, but the game definitely could have been a lot closer had it not been for [Ilya Samsonov]so obviously he was dialed in tonight,” Matthews said. “It was a huge effort by him.”
Samsonov made 37 saves, and Mitchell Marner scored to extend his home point streak to 20 games for the Maple Leafs (28-11-7), who have won two straight.
“I like it was a win first off, two points were great for us,” Samsonov said. “I like it how the team was moving and how the defensemen were in the defensive zone. It was a very good job today, we stayed strong, we stayed focused on the game. It’s unbelievable. Two points and we keep rolling.”
Kyle Connor scored, and Connor Hellebuyck made 23 saves for the Jets (29-16-1), who were coming off a 4-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday.
“We played really well. We had a much better effort, much better competition,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “The mistakes we made with their best players on the ice were glaring. To me, we gave them the first three goals, that’s all on us. You give those guys, Matthews and Marner, those chances, they’re going to score. We had some great looks. Their goalie, we couldn’t get that timely goal that I talked a lot about, and their goalie made a lot of big saves for them. It was a much better effort, much better compete. The score was the same (as against Montreal), I get that.”
Video: WPG@TOR: Matthews scores 8 seconds into the 2nd
After the Maple Leafs were outshot 16-6 in the first period, Matthews scored eight seconds into the second to give them a 1-0 lead. He put the puck between Mark Scheifele‘s legs at the blue line, skated into the left face-off circle and shot five-hole on Hellebuyck.
“I just tried to make a play, and I was able to kind of break in on a mini 2-on-1 and just saw an opening and tried to take it,” Matthews said. “I was able to sneak it by him and just tried not to look back from there.”
Marner said Samsonov deserved a lot of credit for preventing the Jets from building a lead during the first period.
“That was huge,” Marner said. “I think in that first, we gave up a lot more than we would have liked to, but when we did, Samsonov was there to make some massive saves for us. That’s something we came in here and talked about and knew we needed to get better with, and I thought going forward we did that.”
Matthews then made it 2-0 at 3:47. Michael Bunting won a puck battle with Josh Morrissey along the end boards and sent a backhand pass to Matthews, who scored from the blocker side of the slot.
“I knew he was coming through the middle kind of thing,” Bunting said. “To be honest, he told me I didn’t really do much there other than give him a little chip and he did the rest. It was a really nice goal on his end.”
Video: WPG@TOR: Matthews scores his second goal of the game
Matthews, who has scored in three straight games (four goals) after missing two because of an undisclosed injury, is tied with William Nylander for first on the Maple Leafs with 24 goals.
“I think he’s always dialed in,” Marner said. “He’s looking fresh out there, getting pucks in really good areas, and usually when you give him those pucks, he’s not going to miss often.”
Marner extended the lead to 3-0 at 13:49 when he elected to shoot from the left circle on a 2-on-1 for a short-handed goal. He has 29 points (eight goals, 21 assists) during his home point streak, which is the longest in Maple Leafs history.
Video: WPG@TOR: Marner stretches the lead with a SHG in 2nd
Connor cut it to 3-1 at 4:00 of the third period with a one-timer from the right face-off dot off a pass from Morrissey during a 5-on-3 power play.
Mark Giordano scored into an empty net at 17:33 for the 4-1 final.
“Losing is not fun,” Jets forward Pierre-Luc Dubois said. “We say that good teams don’t lose two in a row, and that’s two in a row. We’ve looked at our past couple of seven or eight games here, and it’s not the hockey that we’ve played all year that’s made us successful. Sometimes you’re lucky enough with a goalie like that to get a win even if you don’t play your best. We know that kind of hides sometimes the mistakes that you make. Right now, Hellebuyck is still giving us a chance to win, but we can do a lot better out there.”
NOTES: Matthews and Hellebuyck were among the 12 players chosen in the 2023 NHL All-Star Fan Vote presented by Guaranteed Rate to participate in the Honda NHL All-Star Weekend. … Maple Leafs defenseman Timothy Liljegren left the game at 13:35 of the third period after taking a shot from Brendan Dillon off the head. There was no update postgame.
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