Every third or fourth person at Scotiabank Arena seems to wear an Auston Matthews No. 34 sweater on game nights, surrounding the Maple Leafs bench.
But on Tuesday, the real enchilada wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He was scratched the morning of the important divisional game against Boston with a nagging upper body injury, the worst time to miss the team’s offensive catalyst.
Yet, his brief absences through the years have rarely led to the bottom falling out of the Leafs. When the final horn sounded, the 4-0 win improved the Leafs’ record minus Matthews to 36-19-2.
“Maybe everyone just adds a little bit more compete to their game,” offered winger William Nylander, who had a goal and an assist, both coming on the previously dry power play. “Guys are moved up to some spots and are bringing some energy. It’s hard to cover up for Auston, but everybody does their job.”
While Max Domi was the most challenged on Tuesday as the even-strength relacement at centre for Matthews and had no points, coach Craig Berube liked how he fared with Matthew Knies and Mitch Marner head-to-head against Boston’s Brad Marchand, Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak.
“They checked them well and kept them to the outside for the most part,” Berube said.
“It sucks losing your best player,” Knies added, “but everyone stepped up and it showed we have a lot of deoth in this room.”
The Edmonton Oilers have been without their lynchpin, Connor McDavid, the past few games and for extended periods before that. But with Leon Draisaitl and others filling in gaps their record is 22-27-10 when McDavid’s name has been deleted from the lineup.
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THAT STELLAR STOLARZ
Anthony Stolarz held the third best save percentage among all NHL goaltenders through at least nine games as of Wednesday. His mark of .928 is behind Igor Shesterkin and Lukas Dostal, and ahead of big names such as Connor Hellebuyck.
“He’s been incredible and even in the games we’ve lost, he’s been amazing,” Nylander said.
That included the season opener at the Bell Centre when Stolarz was strong in making 26 stops, but Montreal’s Samuel Montembeault blocked all 48 in a 1-0 Habs win.
Berube said he and the team had a good feeling watching Stolarz in Florida last year that he had a lot of offer, despite approaching age 31 in two months and his lack of playing time behind Cup workhorse Sergei Bobrovsky.
Stolarz has not played in more than 39 games in one season in almost a decade, back to his minor league days. A rematch with Montembeault might be coming Saturday in Toronto, if Berube starts Joseph Woll against Detroit to open the SBA back-to-back on Friday.
The Leafs took Wednesday off and resume practice Thursday. All of their seven wins have involved scoring at least four goals.
BROWSING THE RECORD SHOP
Morgan Rielly’s two goals on Tuesday gave him 84 and moved him past Bryan McCabe and Tomas Kaberle for fifth place among all Toronto defencemen.
Marner’s two power-play points in the second period sent him over 200, the sixth Leafs player to surpass the milestone, while the multi-point period was his 85th, matching Rick Vaive for fifth place. Darryl Sittler leads there with 148 periods with two or more points.
Berube’s win Tuesday put him at 288, in a tie with Tommy Ivan for 57th in NHL coaching history.
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