Leafs solid in 5-0 shutout of Red Wings

TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs put the finishing touches on their National Hockey League pre-season by firing on all cylinders.

Now they hope they can carry that into October when the games count.

“Pre-season feels like it’s a month (or) two months long,” Auston Matthews said. “It’s just nice to get it over with and start the real thing.”

Matthews had a goal and two assists and Frederik Andersen made 16 saves as the Maple Leafs defeated Detroit Red Wings, 5-0, in the both clubs final tune-up game on Saturday.

Matthews finished training camp with five goals and three assists in four games.

Andersen allowed just one goal in four pre-season appearances.

“I haven’t really focused on the statistics or anything like that,” Andersen said of his game. “I just have the mindset where I’m focused on every day and every practice, and it appears like it’s working.”

The power play underwent significant changes when Paul McFarland was named an assistant coach in May. The Leafs scored three power-play goals against the Red Wings. All of them occurred in the second period. The team has employed an incentive-based approach to rolling out its power-play units.

“The way we do it here is if you score you’re going next and if you’re playing better than the other one you’re going next,” Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “It doesn’t matter what your name is, who’s going right here, right now? We think we have enough personnel that we should be able to get them both going. That’s what we’re hopeful of.”