WINNIPEG — John Tavares scored two power-play goals, and the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Winnipeg Jets 4-1 to spoil the debut of coach Rick Bowness at Canada Life Center on Saturday.
“I’m just trying to be myself, I think,” Tavares said. “Be productive and consistently continue to evolve my game over my career. And obviously, finding some pretty good players, and we’ve got a good team. Continuing to read off of them, using my skill set to continue trying to make them better and then make plays and contribute when those opportunities come.”
Austin Matthews had three assists for the Maple Leafs (4-2-0), and Ilya Samsonov made 31 saves.
Pierre-Luc Dubois scored for the Jets (2-3-0), and Connor Hellebuyck made 24 saves.
Bowness missed Winnipeg’s first four games of the regular season after testing positive for COVID-19. Assistant coach Scott Arniel ran the team in his absence.
“We’ve been together, this group has been sticking together the whole [of] training camp and every game,” Bowness said. “We will battle for each other. We did it again tonight and we will do it every game. So I think this group is together, they will continue to fight together and they will continue to fight together and turn this thing around.”
Dubois made it 1-0 Jets at 4:17 of the first period, scoring on his own rebound.
“They played a good game, they’re obviously a good team,” Dubois said. “They jammed that neutral zone pretty well. Instead of trying to get it behind them, we tried to keep making plays, turn it over, and they’re back in our zone getting scoring chances…Sometimes we didn’t have an answer and that’s something that hurt us tonight.”
Video: TOR@WPG: Tavares buries Nylander’s feed in tight
Tavares tied it 1-1 at 9:56, taking a backhand pass from William Nylander and scoring high from the slot.
“[Tavares] looks really good,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “He got two very important goals for us here tonight. But more importantly than that I think he’s just been really good in each game. You know 5-on-5 he’s been really good his line, you know whether it’s been [Denis] Malgin there or [Nicholas] Robertson now. That line’s been pretty consistent.”
David Kampf gave the Maple Leafs a 2-1 lead at 14:34 of the second period. Wayne Simmonds Set the goal up with a backhand between-the-legs pass through traffic in the slot.
“[Kyle Clifford] made a great play coming through the neutral zone and I think me and [Mason] Appleton ran into each other,” said Simmonds, who was making his season debut. “I just slipped the puck to the middle. I just grabbed it and saw somebody coming behind, so I just grabbed it and tried to throw it there as quickly as possible and [Kampf] just had a great shot.”
Video: TOR@WPG: Tavares tips home blue-line shot in tight
Tavares’ second goal made it 3-1 at 18:56, deflecting a Matthews point shot.
Michael Bunting scored into an empty net at 17:23 of the third period for the 4-1 final.
“It wasn’t perfect in the third period but a combination of our guys playing hard and defending the net well and Samsonov being real strong for us it’s a great way to start this trip,” Keefe said.
NOTES: Samsonov is 4-0-0 this season while allowing seven goals. … Simmonds had an assist and three hits in 9:42 of ice time in his season debut for Toronto. … Nylander has four points (two goals, two assists) on a four-game point streak.
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