That wasn’t how Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube might have drawn up a victory.
Fall into a hole, roar back, and never look back.
In beating the Montreal Canadiens 7-3 on Saturday night, the Leafs stunned the Bell Centre crowd. And even those, we would imagine, who were clad in blue and white. For the Leafs fans who made the trip, that was a good thing.
“It was a great comeback win for the guys,” Berube told media in Montreal.
THE BIG THIRD
We don’t want to say it’s all downhill from here, but the Leafs aren’t likely to have another third period like that for a while.
They scored five goals on 12 shots. Consider this: Only in nine previous games this season did the Leafs hit five goals, and in those, they scored a high of six on four occasions.
The Leafs under Berube don’t get bothered much and, sure enough, when the Canadiens took a 3-0 lead into the first intermission, there wasn’t much panic amongst the Toronto players.
“Obviously, the first period wasn’t very good, but the message in the room after 20 was that we could play so much better,” Leafs captain Auston Matthews told the media. “We have 40 minutes. With the talent we have, I don’t think there was any doubt we could claw our way back. That’s a testament to the guys. There’s a no-quit mentality.”
Second-period goals by Bobby McMann and Nick Robertson gave the Leafs momentum heading into the third.
And who else but William Nylander to tie the game on a breakaway before the ice was dry in the third, kicking off the Leafs’ most explosive period of the season?
This after Nylander scored two goals, including one in overtime, in the Leafs’ win over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday. And let’s go back to Wednesday, when Nylander offered this up after practice, when asked about the Leafs’ three-game losing streak: “Good teams find their way out of this. It’s only been three games. What’s the big deal, really?”
That sent Leafs Nation into a tizzy. Since then, Nylander has three goals (including the overtime winner against New Jersey), one assist, 11 shots on goal and 15 attempts. Cool and confident? No doubt.
The Canadiens, winners of 11 of their previous 14 games, couldn’t handle the Leafs in the final 20 minutes.
After Nylander blew past beloved Montreal rookie defenceman Lane Hutson to beat goalie Samuel Montembeault — Hutson offered little resistance to the stronger Nylander — the Leafs piled it on.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson on a power play. Matthews while short-handed. Steven Lorentz on a terrific give-and-go with Ekman-Larsson. And David Kampf, while the Leafs were short-handed again, into an empty net.
The Leafs, in first place in the Atlantic Division, put the Canadiens, who are fighting for a playoff spot, in their place.
CAPTAIN IS BACK
Eight games have elapsed since Matthews returned to the lineup after getting through his latest bout with the upper-body injury that initially flared up in training camp.
Matthews continues to put to rest the idea that, for ensuring his health in the long run, he should not participate in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. We were adamant that Matthews shouldn’t play for the United States, as it would better serve the Leafs that any chance of him aggravating the injury in the tournament would be erased.
Two weeks after Matthews returned, we’ll take those words back. He’s playing more with the kind of authority he has demonstrated when fully healthy, and on Saturday scored the first short-handed goal of his National Hockey League career.
Naturally, it came off a pass from Mitch Marner, and naturally, it was on a Matthews one-timer.
“That one feels really good,” Matthews said.
In eight games since getting back into action, Matthews has seven goals and five assists. In just one game has he been held off the scoresheet.
He’s playing his best hockey of 2024-25. There has been no sign of impediment from his injury. So, let’s see what he can do on the world stage — or, in this case, on a stage with four countries — next month in Montreal and Boston.
WOLL STANDS TALL
The Leafs’ forecheck and work ethic as a whole was instrumental in the second and third periods. Without those elements, they probably don’t rally, certainly not with seven unanswered goals.
We would be remiss, though, if we didn’t stress the importance of goaltender Joseph Woll in the victory.
Woll prides himself on quickly moving on when things don’t go well. He had to be giving himself a pat on the back on the flight home late Saturday night.
After the Canadiens scored three goals on 13 shots in the first, including a couple of strikes nine seconds apart in the final two minutes, Woll was 23-for-23 in the second and third.
In the third, he made what was probably his best save of the season when he lunged across the crease and stopped Nick Suzuki with the top of his stick, just below the knob of tape as the puck zipped underneath him. If Suzuki shoots a centimetre higher or lower, the puck goes in the net.
Though the save came after Lorentz made it 6-3, there’s no denying its importance.
“He was huge,” Matthews said of Woll. “We didn’t give him much help in the first. They had their opportunities in the second and third period and he made some unbelievable saves like he has been all year. He was awesome for us.”
Said Berube: “Our goaltender led the way, in my opinion.”
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