Magical Matthews grabs win for Leafs

MONTREAL — Auston Matthews again brought out his best hockey when the spotlight shines brightest. Facing century-old rival Montreal on Saturday night, and with the Bell Centre seats packed with 21,302 fans, Matthews took a feed from William Nylander and wired a shot past Carey Price 48 seconds into overtime to lift the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 4-3 victory over the Canadiens.

The win ended Toronto’s 11-game winless run against Montreal dating back to Jan. 18, 2014.

“It was a nice win for us, given the history,” said Leafs goaltender Frederik Anderson.

“We wanted to change the narrative a little bit.”

It was Matthews’s second goal of the game and his second overtime winner in less than a week, having done the same in a 4-3 win at home over Chicago.

Matthews and his linemate Nylander started the overtime and were due to go off the ice when Montreal missed a scoring chance and the puck came back the other way. Nylander jumped on it to start a two-on-one, with Matthews controlling a wobbling puck and firing in the winner.

It gave him five goals in five games to start the season.

“For the most part we’ve always been like that, we’ll find each other,” Matthews said of Nylander. “The whole dynamic of our line has pretty much been with [Zach] Hyman and we just look for each other out there.

“Our main goal is to create offence, score goals and make plays to each other. We’re doing that. We’re working hard both ways.”