Rangers goalie Georgiev helps put Leafs away 2-1.
Centre creating chances, now the goals just have to start going in
Auston Matthews was asked if he was dialing it up, with the playoffs in sight. He has been toying with a raggedy beard for most of the season, which doesn’t count; it was something closer to a moustache on Saturday anyway. Nobody grows playoff moustaches, thank god.
Matthews nodded. “Yeah,” he said, before a 2-1 overtime loss to the New York Rangers. “I think it’s important.”
We hold some truths to be self-evident in this country too, and raising your game in the playoffs is one of them. Matthews had one goal on a team-high 27 shots in seven playoff games last season, and one assist. Essentially, nothing went in. He still led all Leafs forwards in ice time. But he came up close to empty. He will get another chance this year, like all of them.
The Rangers, Saturday’s opponent, felt like a discount Viking funeral for Henrik Lundqvist, and the game felt like a tune-up for a long time. But Matthews was quietly volcanic without erupting. Over every team’s last 10 games, Matthews has attempted 66 shots while playing 5-on-5, second in the NHL to Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher’s 67. At all strengths, he leads all players with 90, for five goals. In this one, he attempted 16 shots, four of which actually got to the net. Only Morgan Rielly’s 17 shot attempts were better. They didn’t go in, either.
“Yeah, (Matthews) had some great looks,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “Really good looks.
“I didn’t even realize after one (period) how many good looks he had until I saw it in the room. Work hard. To me it’s all process. Just do good things, good things will happen. It doesn’t happen right away all the time, but it’ll happen.”
Matthews could have scored two or three times in the first, another couple in the second, maybe one or two in the third. Late in the second he dominated a two-lap shift — twice around the Rangers zone, playing like everyone else was standing still — but he couldn’t get a shot and his pass bobbled on John Tavares’s stick. He nearly created goals for William Nylander and Andreas Johnsson in the third; the latter was a no-look pass after a work of stickhandling art.
But nothing went in against otherwise unremarkable Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev, not even a drive in overtime, and then Matthews changed in overtime as a 2-on-1 developed that the Rangers eventually finished. Toronto lost.
“That goalie’s got our number somehow,” Matthews said. “Just keep going. We’re good players. Eventually those are going to go in; and if it’s not tonight it’ll be tomorrow, and if it’s not tomorrow it’ll be the next game. But you just want to continue to play the way we are, and keep generating those chances ... we’re too good to keep creating these opportunities and not capitalize on them.”
After the Leafs blew a lead in Vancouver a little over two weeks ago Matthews talked about how his season — still a very, very good one — had been affected by the shoulder injury that cost him 14 games in October and November. It took him a month or two to feel like his legs were back, he said. He said his hand-eye coordination, his feel, felt off for some time, too.
Then in Edmonton that Saturday night he played heavy minutes against Connor McDavid (and his two mannequin wingers, in fairness) and was on the ice for 25 shot attempts during 5-on-5 play, and 10 against. He’s had a few planet-smasher games since, the best of which may have been in Buffalo Wednesday, when he played angry and on top of his game.
“Yeah, in Buffalo when I was on the ice watching the line go, I was like, I knew they were going to have a good night,” said Leafs defenceman Jake Muzzin. “You could just tell. They were buzzing, the puck was following them around the ice, getting chances ... Hopefully the chemistry and the work continues, and they can carry it on to the playoffs.” He was asked if that was the best version of Matthews he had seen in his 25 games to that point in Toronto.
“I think so,” he said. “I don't know what it was, but the puck was not leaving his stick. I don't know if his hands were feeling it that night, but (with) his work ethic, and when the puck is glued to his stick like that, it's hard to get it off him. He created a lot of chances, yeah.”
Matthews and Nylander naturally make one another better, and Johnsson is a nice third. But when Matthews takes his hand-eye co-ordination and his skating and his instincts and his shot and goes up an extra level, he can play with anybody in the world. His line will likely be matched against Boston’s buzz-saw top line again when the Leafs are on the road in the opening round. That line is centred by Patrice Bergeron, who is so ageless it’s like he was carved from stone The Leafs will need Matthews to be great.
So, he’s ramping up, even if the scoresheet isn’t lighting up in the obvious ways. They don’t all go in; Matthews learned that in the playoffs last year, and was reminded Saturday night. He could hit a desert again, at the wrong time.
But he is giving himself chances. Eventually, the volcano erupts.