Auston Matthews took it to the bank Thursday night and cashed in one of the niftiest empty-net goals you’ll see from a Maple Leaf.
“That was pretty sick,” winger Steven Lorentz said Friday morning.
With Seattle stopper Joey Daccord pulled for an extra attacker, a situation the Leafs have struggled with recently, puck-carrier Matthews had two Kraken checkers on him in the Leafs zone and made a split-second decision to flick it off the Scotiabank Arena boards to the abandoned cage.
From well over 100 feet out, midway between centre red line and Toronto’s blueline, the disc landed dead centre for a 4-1 final.
“Just hope, pray and find the right angle,” the captain said. “But it went in. I’m not a pool player, it’s my worst sport.”
The goal was still a hot topic among teammates Friday. Lorentz tried to emulate it a few times before the rest of the team got on the ice at the Ford Performance Centre.
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“I blew it about five feet wide every time,” Lorentz said with a laugh. “It’s so weird because it all depends on where you’re standing on the ice. You have to find that right spot.
“Take four or five cracks at it, you might get one. But for Auston to do it in the heat of a game, to turn, look at the net, look at the boards and say ‘yeah, right about here’, then put it right in the middle of the net, that was pretty impressive.”
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