It has been said that the sign of a good team is the ability to win games even when they don’t well, and that was definitely the case with the Toronto Maple Leafs in their 3-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday. The Leafs were outworked, out-chanced and outshot 27-7 through two periods, but were tied 1-1 after 40 minutes thanks mostly to goalie Frederik Andersen.
Toronto turned things around in the final frame, outshooting the Canucks 12-5 and getting goals from Auston Matthews and Alex Kerfoot 11 seconds apart to give the Leafs their third straight victory and a league-best 10-2-1 record.
“You can't even compare tonight's game to the first two games in the series. Vancouver was a much different team today, so it's a much different game. I think our failure tonight was really just to adapt to the game. I thought we really controlled the first two games with the puck.” Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game. “(Tonight) was a lot harder to do so just the way that they worked and competed and got on top of us. It made it a lot harder and we didn't adapt to that until the third period.”
After not scoring in the first two games of the season, Matthews has goals in nine of his last 10 games and eight in a row to lead the NHL with 11 goals, but even more impressive has been the young center’s hard work in the defensive zone, helping out to retrieve pucks and aiding the Leafs defense.
The Leafs went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen, giving 20-year-old Rasmus Sandin his first start of the season. In spite of playing just five minutes, the club’s top prospect accounted himself pretty well, with a secondary assist on Matthews game-winner and three hits.
“Being on the outside of the lineup has been a little frustrating obviously, but it felt unbelievable to get back in and get a little feel of the game speed and all of that. It was great to be back.” Sandin said. “Mitch (Marner) just came up to me and just said ‘look for me’, so that’s what I did and he did the rest together with Auston. It wasn’t too hard so it was great that it worked.”
The club practiced at the Ford Performance Centre on Tuesday, with rookie Nick Robertson, veteran Joe Thornton and defenseman Travis Dermott all participating. Dermott is recovering from a charley horse, but indicated he might be ready to return as early as Wednesday against Montreal, while Robertson and Thornton are not expected to be available until next week.
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