Marleau at home in high-scoring offence
WINNIPEG— The Maple Leafs have developed a tradition of getting a big night out of the new guy in season openers. This year, it was Patrick Marleau. The big-money, free-agent winger scored twice in his debut with the Maple Leafs en route to a 7-2 downing of the Winnipeg Jets as Toronto opened its 101st NHL season.
Marleau’s first goal was assisted by Auston Matthews. It was a beauty, Marleau taking a pass from Matthews off his skate, moving it to his stick and deking a flustered Steve Mason for a debut that went about as well as could be imagined.
“This is the way you want to see it go,” Marleau said. “The guys played great . . . A great play by (Matthews) getting it over to me.”
Matthews and Mitch Marner, who started the play coming out of the penalty box, were both babies when Marleau played his first NHL game.
“That was awesome, an unbelievable pick up by him and his move was even better,” Matthews said. “Pretty special play. I’m sure it feels good for him to get the ball rolling. We’re all happy for him.”
Matthews scored four goals in his debut last year and followed that up with a three-point night (one goal, two assists). The goal came after a Leaf penalty kill when coach Mike Babcock likes to play offensive players who don’t kill penalties.
“You can see how hungry they are out there,” Marleau said of his young teammates. “Not only in games but in practice. They’re striving to get better and you can feed off that.”
Marner, James van Riemsdyk, William Nylander and Nazem Kadri also scored for the Leafs, while Frederik Andersen put on a clinic in net and silenced Bell MTS Place, one of the loudest buildings in the NHL. Mark Scheifele and Mathieu Perreault scored third-period goals for Winnipeg.
“It’s nice to get a good start,” Andersen said. “I thought we settled in after the first 10 (minutes) and after that we really started to make the best of our opportunities. It’s a tough crowd to play into here and I think we did well.”
The best news perhaps is that the Leafs’ big guns were their big guns, offensively, putting a lie to the theory — at least for one game — that Toronto wasn’t going to surprise anybody.
And for a team that’s built on offence, coach Mike Babcock was happy to see his scorers score right away.
“We scored timely goals,” Babcock said. “It was a good night for our guys. A lot of our guys got off (to good starts). You don’t have to worry about scoring goals when you score goals right away.”
The game wasn’t always pretty, as far as the Leafs were concerned. Penalties were a problem. The Leafs took eight minors, including the first three in a row.
That required Andersen to keep the game scoreless, and he made a number of key saves.
“Freddie came up huge and that’s what we need,” Matthews said. “We know they’re calling it tight, so we have to be better in that area.” Leo Komarov was one of those caught in the dragnet of strict enforcement, called for equipment violation for wearing his visor too high.
“My visor was totally fine,” Komarov said. “I can’t go for Lady Byng any more.
“I put it down like they wanted me to. I don’t know what the problem was. I think they were looking at me as an example.”
The Leafs home opener is Saturday against the New York Rangers.
The signings of Jack Eichel (eight years, $10 million U.S. a year) by the Buffalo Sabres and Nicolaj Ehlers (seven years at $6 million a year) offer a window in what it will take for the Leafs to re-sign Matthews, Marner and William Nylander.