Looking to break out
Leafs star Auston Matthews poised to make mark as series shifts home to Toronto
Count Capitals centre Evgeny Kuznetsov as a fan of Auston Matthews.
“I love the way he plays,” Kuznetsov says of the Maple Leafs’ talented 19-year-old. “It’s nice to see when young guys, they come in the league and they play right away the way it should be played.”
After a quiet, one-shot playoff debut, Matthews got going in the second half of Game 2 on Saturday. Finding speed and space more often, he finished with four shots on 10 attempts.
His line, which also includes fellow rookies William Nylander and Zach Hyman, was arguably the Leafs’ most dangerous in the 4-3 double-overtime win.
“I thought as the game went on (Matthews) and (Hyman) really took over,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said afterward.
Babcock now has control of the matchups on home ice, meaning he can move Matthews away from the dangerous Kuznetsov if he so chooses and also get his pick of which defensive pair the group will see most often.
During Games 1 and 2, the Capitals split duties against the likely Calder Trophy winner between their top pair of John Carlson and Karl Alzner and the secondary duo of Matt Niskanen and Dmitry Orlov. Washington’s third pairing of Kevin Shattenkirk and Brooks Orpik isn’t exactly weak, but more shifts against lesser competition (including their third and fourth lines) might just help Matthews emerge.
Interestingly enough, Matthews actually fared better on the road during the regular season (24 goals, 40 points) than he did at home (16, 29). He finished with three points in three meetings with the Caps, but was held to one shot twice.
Their strategy for defending him is similar to “any other highly skilled, intelligent player” and it starts with that old hockey axiom of eliminating time and space.
“But especially space for him,” said Capitals centre Lars Eller, who faced Matthews for less than two minutes at evenstrength in Game 2.
Why space specifically? Because players like Matthews need only the slightest bit of room to make a defender look foolish. Crowd. Crowd. Crowd. That’s the only way to contain the creative instincts and ability of a player like Matthews, and it worked in the opener.
“There’s just not that much space, not much going at either end,” Matthews said after Game 1, which the Leafs lost in overtime. “You don’t get too many Grade-A opportunities here in the playoffs so you get your one or two a game and you want to make sure you capitalize on them.”