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The Toronto Maple Leafs needed to step up their effort and get more production from their core players in their return home after losing four in a row on the road and got a dominant performance from team captain John Tavares, who registered his first hat trick in over three years in a 5-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday.
Tavares scored a hat trick for the first time since a four-goal outing against Florida in March 2019, including an uncharacteristic blast from long range and an impressive individual effort around Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim and past goalie Felix Sandstrom in the third.
“We got a big performance from our captain.… Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game. “At 1-1 in the first, he shoots one in the net for us. The second goal was big-time stuff. It is a big moment in the game. They had just made it 3-2 and with everything that has been happening with our team here, you are trying to get a win and manage tight games.
We were talking on the bench that we wanted to keep pushing. For a little bit there, I don’t want to say we were on our heels, but we were just sort of playing safe and defensive. We certainly needed to play with intelligence, but we needed to continue to push and play on their half of the ice.…
Zach Aston-Reese scored the eventual game-winner in the third, Auston Matthews added a power play marker, and Ilya Samsonov made 23 saves for his fifth victory of the season.
In the positive column for Toronto:
Samsonov made a pair of impressive stops at key moments, including a sprawling stop off the opening faceoff in the third to preserve a tenuous one-goal lead.
The Leafs penalty killing unit was successful on five straight Flyers power plays before Owen Tippett’s goal in the third narrowed the lead to 3-2.
With the game well in hand in the third, Flyers forward Travis Konecny attempted to stir things up by slashing at the legs of Matthews (perhaps because he tried a between-the-legs shot up three goals). Matthews slashed back and shoves ensued before Mark Giordano and later Michael Bunting tackled Konecny.
they went for Matthews
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) November 3, 2022
Bunting and Giordano step in pic.twitter.com/bhxlGfnACn
In the negative column:
Keefe was forced to split up the top pairing of Morgan Rielly and TJ Brodie, playing Rielly with Victor Mete and Brodie with Justin Holl. Brodie is the most trusted two-way defender on the club, but even he could not cover up for Holl, who on one shift in the second period was so careless with the puck that the Scotiabank Arena crowd booed the Leafs righty defenseman.
The return of Timothy Liljegren on Saturday will hopefully lighten the workload of Holl to that of a bottom-pairing blueliner because his playing top-four minutes exposes the club to scoring chances on a regular basis.
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