Morning-after recap: Our AM > Your AM

The Toronto Maple Leafs played a bad hockey team last night, and turned what could’ve been a bad night into a good one with a trio of goals from three of their stars.

It’s rare you go through a first period with either of these two teams with no one scoring in the first period, but that’s how things went last night.

Finally getting on the board a little over 5 minutes into the second period was Anthony Mantha, who hit the 20 goal mark for the first time in his career. A nice display of hand-eye coordination on the tip-in, and the Buds would have to work from behind on this one.

Thankfully, they’ve got a beautiful redirect artist of their own. Straying away from the goal crease the past few games, JVR returned to familiar territory to pot his 24th goal of the season. He didn’t have to do much on this one, but they all count the same and Jake Gardiner adds yet another assist to his tally. The Red Wings lead evaporates after just 71 seconds, which seems about par for the course with the way things are going in that organization these days.

Do you remember when people were doubting this kid? Seems like a lifetime ago when anyone in this market had bad things to say about Mitch Marner, and he’s been carrying his new line to new heights as of late. Mitch Marner operates the game of hockey at a different speed than everyone else, which isn’t necessarily running through the opposition, but sometimes simply waiting them out. Though it seems like he had the puck on his stick for 45 seconds, it was really only 18 seconds after JVR scored and the Leafs would take their first, but not last lead of the day.

Do the Red Wings know they’re not supposed to try to win games at this point? For whatever reason, they pushed

Speaking about players with unique skillsets, how the heck does Henrik Zetterberg find this much space? At age… 37 you’d figure he’d be a little easier to cover on the ice at even strength, but he sneaks in behind, well, everyone to net his eighth goal of the season. With just under 11 minutes to go, the sense of existential dread began as losing this game to these Red Wings would be pretty ridiculous.

But there was something even more ridiculous to come from the big cheese. Can we call Auston the big cheese?

Whatever you call him, he steals the whole damn show in the flick of one stick. With 30 seconds to go, Auston says goodbye to overtime after receiving a cheeky pass from the slick Swede, William Nylander.

His fourth game-winner of the season, and one you’ll be watching on the highlights for weeks to come.