The Toronto Maple Leafs used their high-powered offense to cover up for any concerns of starting backup goalie Michael Hutchinson, as the top line of Joe Thornton, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner dominated in a 7-3 romp over the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday.
The Leafs top line trio combined for 11 points, with Matthews scoring a pair of goals and two assists to increase his league-leading total to 16, Marner registering four points (1 goal, 3 assists) to move into third place in the NHL scoring race behind Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, and Thornton scoring a goal and two assists, becoming the oldest Leaf to register three points since Carl Brewer in 1980.
Ilya Mikheyev, William Nylander and John Tavares also scored and Hutchinson made 34 saves in the first start of his second stint with Toronto, who earned five of a possible six points in the three-game set with the Sens.
“I (didn’t) know how it was going to go, to be honest, but I’ve watched him play for a really long time, he’s been in the league forever.” Matthews said after the game about Thornton. ”It’s just easy to play with him, and Mitch and I have been playing with each other for a bit now too. We just try to create offense and utilize our chemistry. As you play more and more games and practice and get more touches with each other our chemistry will continue to get better. We just want to keep that going. The puck’s going in the net right now and that’s great, but the most important part is we’re winning hockey games.”
The Leafs big lead later in the contest allowed Keefe the opportunity to jump start some of his struggling players, moving Nylander up to play with Matthews and Thornton and Marner with Tavares and Alex Kerfoot. The move resulted in goals for both in the second half of the game.
“(I was) just trying to get a little bit of a spark for both John and Will.” Keefe said. “Just thought we had an opportunity there to change that up a little bit.”
Toronto gave Frederik Andersen a complete day of rest after starting 10 straight, using rookie Joseph Woll to backup Hutchinson. With the win, the Leafs open up an eight point lead on Montreal (who they play on Saturday) for top spot in the North Division, but the Habs have only played 15 games to Toronto’s 18.
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