Auston vs. Boston win-win for Leafs
Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. There. In the 150th minute of the 2019 playoffs, Auston Matthews scored a goal.
On his 19th shot of the postseason.
In what would be an ice-pick of a 3-2 win for Toronto over Boston, the Leafs now leading the first-round series two games to one.
“I mean, just excited,’’ a stilltorqued Matthews said afterwards. “It’s nice obviously to get one. It’s just another level when you score a goal during the playoffs, especially at home. It’s just like an earthquake under you.
“The atmosphere tonight was unbelievable.”
Let’s just parse that flick of the stick a bit on Matthews’ maiden post-season marker, circa ’19. Maple Leafs only a dozen ticks into their power play — a PP which had gone 0-for-4 in the previous two games, by the way — when Andreas Johnsson, who’d hung on to the puck for a halfheartbeat longer than the converging Bruins might have expected, passed adroitly to an unmolested Matthews, some 20 feet to his left. Tuukka Rask, head-rattled mere minutes earlier (and can thank teammate Charlie McAvoy for crashing John Tavares into him) was on the wrong side of the crease.
Really, it was a yawning net. A yawner wrister, as far as Matthews highlight-reel goals go. Nothing toe-dragging, nothing that quicksilver released, nothing needle-threading. Just a hunkered over boop and behind Rask, Toronto up 2-1 on Boston midway through the middle period, the power play spring to life and with Johnsson added to it.
“A beautiful pass that he gave me,” said Matthews.
Oh, but such an orangutan off Matthews’ back. Arms raised in jubilation, fists punching the air, grin from ear to ear.
Maybe a sigh of relief from one end of the Leaf bench to the other too. That’s the Auston they’ve been missing in this playoff series.
And then such a lovely chorus of AUSTON MATTHEWS! AUSTON MATTHEWS! AUSTON MATTHEWS! from the Scotiabank Arena crowd.
As the winner, Matthews’ first goal of these playoffs — in fact, his first goal in the past 10 playoff games, stretching back to the last Boston vs. Toronto tango a year ago — didn’t stand up. But his second point of this spring’s hockey session was a nice little assist on Johnsson’s forehand-backhand dazzler exactly seven minutes later, Matthews poking the puck past Brandon Carlo, Tavares doing all the cycle digging behind the net in the powerplay setup.
Wasn’t exactly a Matthews explosion of offence — though his second career multi-point playoff game and first since Game 3 against Washington back in 2017, his rookie season — but certainly felt that way after such a long dry spell, a lot of decent work with little to show for it.
Even if keeping well inside his playoff bubble, tuning out all the white noise and the phone-in blather and, yeah, the newspaper columnist clucking, doubtless some of the wailing had filtered through. Not that Matthews needed to hear it from the outside. That soundtrack has been playing in his head.
Matthews hungers to be the guy. At every stage of his hockey life, he’s been the guy. Lord knows, the Maple Leafs need him to be the guy. Or at least among the stud guys.
It comes with the territory of intrinsic greatness: gamechanger.
Someone who seizes the moment, the stage.
Sometimes, in the unscripted drama of sports, that can be the person least expected to make a profound difference. Fate finds them and smiles.
But expectations for those wreathed with talent, whose gifts are otherworldly, are frequently burdensome and inside-out hindering.
In post-season hockey, Matthews’ reach has frustratingly exceeded his grasp.
What’s wrong Auston? What gives Auston? What the hell Auston?
The actual hell of it: Through the first two games of this series, Matthews led the Leafs with eight shots and 17 shot attempts. In Game 3, he put four pucks on Rask and had four further shots attempted.
But that line, Matthews bracketed by Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen, hadn’t generated significant scoring chances against the Bruins until Game 3, a goal and an assist each for Matthews and Johnsson. And so, earlier in the day, Matthews had tried to explain the why of it, the Afactor impact that had yet to be realized.
“You want to obviously score and create and produce. I mean, you’re getting shots and opportunities from the slot and they’re not going in. You’ve just got to keep shooting and stay patient.”
Patience. What Babcock has advised and preached, reminding repeatedly that a team’s stars often don’t rack up the points in the first, even the second, round. Goals, Babcock assured Matthews, will come. And maybe you have to take that on faith. Matthews’ faith, in himself, hadn’t wavered.
“Two years ago, when we were in the playoffs against Washington, it was the same situation,” he said. “Two games went by and no point, and then it kind of just went from there. So I think he’s right, you’ve got to stay patient. You’re going to get your opportunities every game, like we have been, and try to cash in.
“The more you shoot, kind of break them down defensively, and try to recover the puck and continue to play on offence. You’ve just got to keep shooting and try getting to the net and cash in on some ugly goals and rebounds and just continue to compete, and hopefully one goes in and it just becomes a domino effect.”
This goal was neither ugly nor a thing of beauty. It was kinda meh. But you wouldn’t have known it from Matthews’ reaction.
To some extent, if only for the sake of comparison, it did somewhat delineate what maybe hadn’t been working for Matthews in the previous two games: Despite all those shots, he wasn’t getting into the places where he should have been shooting from; too much on the outside and predictable and blockable.
“It’s playoffs, so there’s not much space,’’ said Matthews. “Teams definitely get much more defensive structure, keeping them on the outside. It’s physical. Guys are on top of you at all times.”
Bold and cunning, in the often chaotic third period of this particular thriller, going brash five-hole on Rask. Then, with under two minutes left in regulation time, first ragged the puck and then protected the puck in the Boston corner with two Bruins all over him.
“We want to continue what we built off tonight here on Wednesday,’’ Matthews promised.
Cracking out of his playoff cowl.
The Guy.