In Auston Matthews’ NHL debut, he made history by scoring four goals, and the Toronto Maple Leafs went on to lose in overtime to the Ottawa Senators. On Saturday night, Matthews once again made history by setting the Leafs’ new franchise record with 421 goals, tying Mats Sundin for the record and breaking it eight minutes later, before eventually falling to the New York Islanders in overtime.

The Islanders opened the scoring, Matthews scored the next two, and the Leafs would then trade goals with them before settling on a 3-3 tie to send things to overtime. While Matthews made history and will rightfully be one of the bigger storylines to headline the game, Islanders defenceman Matthew Schaefer made sure that his name will share the honours with Matthews. The young star scored to tie the game at 2-2 and sealed the deal in overtime, bringing him up to 28 points in 42 games in his rookie year.

Overall, it was a back and forth game and another one that can be chalked up to not getting the extra bounce and poor performances from certain players rather than a collectively bad effort. It was Joseph Woll’s second less-than-stellar effort in a row, allowing four goals on 25 shots, and Morgan Rielly finished the night with an ugly -4 after being on the ice for all of the Islanders’ goals.

Here are four takeaways from the Maple Leafs’ overtime loss to the New York Islanders.

It’s easy to lose sight of how stellar Matthews has been as a Maple Leaf. The continued playoff woes and the lack of a meaningful run nine years into his time here tend to overshadow the impressive regular season accomplishments. But, think about how people talked about Mats Sundin in the days the Leafs were running with Tyler Bozak and a young Nazem Kadri as their first line centre. Matthews has passed him in goals in four less years and likely another nine to go, at least.

“It means a lot,” Matthews said postgame. “It’s a very historical franchise and you take a lot of pride in putting on the jersey every day. So to be in the same sentence as some of the greats that have come before us, it means a lot. It’s extremely special. I’m very humbled and I couldn’t do it without the great group of guys around me.”

All there is left for Matthews to accomplish as a Maple Leaf is the end goal of winning a Stanley Cup. He’s done everything else to cement his legacy as the greatest Leaf of all time, playoff woes aside. While it’s been an underwhelming season so far for him, by his standards, he’s started to look more like himself lately, and with five goals in his last two games, he might be turning on the jets at the perfect time.

You can’t help but admire what Schaefer is doing in his rookie season, and he gave the Leafs a strong taste of his capabilities. At 18 years old, Schaefer is regularly playing upwards of 24 minutes a night, and as Craig Simpson noted on the broadcast, you don’t get those minutes unless you can excel on both sides of the puck. He logged 22 minutes and 11 seconds of ice time against the Maple Leafs and scored two goals including the game winner.

Schaefer picked up the puck in transition on his first goal, driving the net around both Max Domi and Morgan Rielly to shove it past Woll and tie the game. Then, in overtime, Woll played the puck instead of covering it after making an easy save on Tony DeAngelo, which would have given the Leafs a chance to get some fresh legs. The Leafs were forced to scramble and the Islanders would regain the zone, with Mathew Barzal drawing both Rielly and Matthew Knies to leave Schaefer wide open for a point blank shot at Woll.

“He’s obviously the real deal…This is our first time playing against him,” Matthews said of Schaefer postgame. “So you definitely get an up-front, close view of just his speed and the size and the pace that he plays with. He’s a great player. He’s going to be a really, really good player here in this league for a long time.”

Forgive us for the double-point on Matthews, but it can’t be overlooked that not only has he turned on the jets these past two games, he’s scoring goals the way he did in his 60 and 69-goal campaigns. His first goal was similar to Schaefer’s first, driving the net on his off-wing and putting it past Islanders netminder Ilya Sorokin.

His second one, seen above in the first point, was a textbook Matthews one timer on his off-wing after Bobby McMann found him following an effort to keep the puck in. The bench erupted after Matthews scored and cleared to mob him along the boards.

He also got a nice shoutout from the guy he passed. Overall, a solid night for the captain that could have only been made better by the extra point.

If Matthews continues this pace into the Olympic break, it will do wonders for a Leafs team that needs to be treating each game like it’s a playoff game from here on out.

Between the grocery list of injuries and an already loaded task of reshaping the offensive schemes without Mitch Marner, the Leafs have struggled to find four lines that click at once. Not having consistent linemates makes building chemistry a tough task, but Nicolas Roy and Nick Robertson have been looking more and more comfortable with each other each day.

Robertson scored the go-ahead goal in the third period to make it 3-2 after Roy found him out front for a clean look past Sorokin. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that Easton Cowan, the other piece of that line, started the play by boxing out his man.

While Dakota Joshua and Nicolas Roy have been together most of the time they’ve both been healthy, Robertson might be forcing his way onto a line with them for good. The connection has been evident lately, and finding combinations that work will be imperative to success over the next few months.

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