WIN OVER WINGS
DETROIT — To Jeff Blashill, the outcome came down to one simple fact.
“They made one more play than us,” the Detroit coach Blashill said.
To Toronto centre Auston Matthews, it came down to persistence.
“We’ve got a lot of chances the last couple of games,” Matthews said. “We had some pretty good chances tonight, the puck just wouldn’t go in.
“It was nice to finally finish it off there with a half a minute left.”
Matthews scored with 30.2 seconds left to give the Maple Leafs a 3-2 victory over the Red Wings on Sunday night.
James van Riemsdyk and Mitch Marner also scored for Toronto, and Curtis McElhinney made 27 saves.
Anthony Mantha and Henrik Zetterberg scored for Detroit.
Matthews took William Nylander’s pass and snapped a high shot into the roof of the net from a sharp angle for his 27th goal of the season.
“I just tried to play Nylander there,” Detroit goalie Petr Mrazek said. “I didn’t see Matthews. It was a nice shot by him. He put it in the top corner.”
Matthews had gone three games without a goal, his longest drought in a month.
“Me and Willie looked at each other and said, ‘Finally,’” Matthews said. “Sometimes you’ve just got to laugh it off and keep going out there and playing the same way. We’re good players. We’re too skilled to create all those opportunities and not capitalize on them.
“It just happened to be in the last couple of seconds of the game.”
Detroit centre Dylan Larkin iced the puck, leading to a faceoff in the Wings end with 37.8 seconds left in the third period.
It was the second time in eight games the Wings had surrendered the game-winning goal in the final minute of regulation. Florida’s Jonathan Huberdeau scored with 7.7 seconds left to give the Panthers a 3-2 verdict over the Wings on Feb. 3.
Detroit coach Jeff Blashill felt his team needed to show more composure in the dying moments.
“I think we can talk to each other and know that we’ve got a little more time there and make a little more poised play,” Blashill said. “We didn’t and then they made a play on the faceoff.”
Mantha opened the scoring on a power play 5:51 into the second period. Standing on the doorstep of McElhinney’s net, Mantha deflected Gustav Nyquist’s shot. under the goalie’s arm.