No. 25 for Matthews in Leafs victory
Mike Babcock ordered his Maple Leafs to bring their buckets and mops to the ACC and clean up the mess t hey made t he past f ew games on the road.
This time, they listened to the coach and with the required goaltending from backup Curtis McElhinney were 3-1 winners over the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night. After being involved in a pair of crazy 6- 5 games that wrapped a six- game trip, the Leafs saved enough energy from a loss in Brooklyn to get by.
With McElhinney making his first home start since being acquired last month, he made 39 saves and is now 2-2 as a Leaf.
It took Toronto’s offence awhile to get moving, but taking advantage of a double minor in the third period, Nikita Zaitsev put the game away. Jake Gardiner was another defenceman involved in the Leaf attack, scoring once and having another shot tipped by Auston Matthews.
The Stars got in a heap of penalty trouble in the third, a cross check, Adam Cracknell running into McElhinney and Radek Faksa grab- bing a puck off a faceoff. Toronto managed the win and were able to give McElhinney the support denied Anderse
Gardiner equalled last year’s total of seven goals midway through the first period. The catalysts on his first effort were two familiar faces on the score sheet of late, Tyler Bozak winning the draw to Mitch Marner, who put Gardiner in business. Gardiner’s drive might have nicked Antoine Roussel on its way through, fooling Dallas goalie Antti Niemi.
In the second period, it was a Matthews’ f aceoff back to Gardiner, allowing Matthews to get a stick on Gardiner’s rising wrister away and past the goalie. Matthews is now at 25 goals, tying Sergei Berezin and sitting behind only Daniel Marois ( 31) and Wendel Clark ( 34) for most goals by a rookie since Clark’s record in 1985-86.
At the end of the evening Marner remained two ahead of Matthews for the point lead among all NHL rookies, 46- 44, with Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine also playing later Tuesday.
The only goal by Dallas, to briefly make it 2-1, was Tyler Seguin hammering in a Cody Eakin win in the dot over Ben Smith on a power play.