‘Exceptional’ Matthews closing in on second 50-goal season for Leafs
‘He’s the best goal-scorer in the league’
Leave it to William Nylander to succinctly sum up the impact of Maple Leafs teammate Auston Matthews.
“He’s the best goal-scorer in the league,” Nylander said after the Leafs beat the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night, “so I don’t know what else to tell you.”
That’s what it boils down to, period.
With 39 goals in 54 games, Sam Reinhart is having a career year for the Florida Panthers, and usual suspects Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning and David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins are keeping pace with 36 goals and 34 goals, respectively.
Barring injury, however, Matthews is in line to win the Rocket Richard Trophy for the third time in four years, scoring at a pace that would have him finishing with 71 goals.
Piling up 45 goals in 51 games is taking Matthews to an area where he’s untouchable.
Before the lone NHL game on Friday night, there were 72 hat tricks across the league in 2023-24. Matthews has five of them, including four at home. Only three other teams — Anaheim, Edmonton and Vancouver — have five in total. Six teams don’t have one player with a hat trick this season.
Next up for Matthews and the Leafs is a visit by the Ducks on Saturday at Scotiabank Arena, a game that will end Toronto’s three-game homestand. In 12 career games against the Ducks, Matthews has seven goals.
Following that will be a four-game trip to St. Louis, Arizona, Vegas and Colorado. It stands to reason that by the time the Leafs play at home again after Saturday, on Feb. 27 against the Golden Knights, Matthews might have hit 50 goals for the second time in his career.
“It’s exceptional,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “There’s not much else to say.”
As Morgan Rielly was pleading his case on Friday, a couple of Leafs defencemen, Simon Benoit and Timothy Liljegren, had to have been having a rather enjoyable day off.
Though Matthews’ hat trick was the focus after the game (rightfully so) on Thursday, the play of Benoit and Liljegren against the Flyers wasn’t diminished.
Liljegren played 24 minutes 27 seconds and set up a pair of goals including the overtime winner by William Nylander. Only once in 175 previous NHL games did Liljegren get more ice time, in December 2022 against the Dallas Stars.
Benoit fought for the fourth time as a Maple Leaf and had another one of
his meat-and-potatoes stat lines: A team-high seven hits and three blocked shots.
General manager Brad Treliving is seeking depth defencemen as the March 8 trade deadline approaches, but the straightforward, physical manner of Benoit has taken some of the urgency out of trying to add immediately.
“He has been very important, has become a very popular teammate as well, both in his personality and with how he plays,” Keefe said.
“He’s a real fun guy to coach to because he wants to work, he wants to learn, he asks questions. Has a good personality, comes here with a smile. I think he’s having a lot of fun.”
Liljegren said his confidence is “going in the right direction,” and Keefe called his play versus Philadelphia “a good step.”
As for Rielly, the hearing for his appeal of his fivegame suspension took place on Friday with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in New York. Rielly has served two games and as of now, is eligible to return on Thursday in Las Vegas against the Golden Knights.
Bettman rarely reduces suspensions, and usually takes about three days to announce his decision. The best hope for Rielly, who never had been punished by the NHL, could be that it’s reduced by one game. If so, that would make him eligible to return to action in Arizona against the Coyotes on Wednesday.
LOOSE LEAFS
The Leafs have won both games with Rielly out of the lineup and were 14-2-1 without him last season. This was goalie Ilya Samsonov’s view: “We need Morgan, yeah, for sure. But if you ask me, I am happy when we win, does not matter who is playing, who is not. We don’t worry about what is going on in the future or in the past. We focus on this moment right now.” ... Matthews’ five hat tricks have tied the Leafs franchise record for most in a season, also shared by Darryl Sittler (1980-81), Babe Dye (1924-25) and Reg Noble (1917-18). Matthews is just the third NHL player in the past 30 years to score five hat tricks in one season, joining Jonathan Cheechoo (five in 2005-06 for San Jose) and Mario Lemieux (six in 1995-96 for Pittsburgh) ... The Leafs’ next seven games are against Western Conference teams. They’re 17-5-2 against the West this season ... Though we would hate to get ahead of ourselves, there’s no reason for the Leafs to lose to the Ducks. Anaheim has five wins in its past 19 games and was no match for Toronto when the clubs met in California on Jan. 3. The Leafs had a season-high 104 shot attempts that night and required an overtime victory only because Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal had a career night, making 55 saves. Matthews scored his 30th in the extra period to give the Leafs a 2-1 win.