Postgame: Auston Matthews, Destroyer of Streaks

The season doesn’t truly start until the Leafs play the Habs. Usually, that’s game 1, but for some reason, the NHL decided not to do that anymore, just when both teams started making the playoffs.

It’s an epic matchup, especially down the middle, where we have Matthews, Kadri, & Bozak against Drouin (a winger), Danault (who was Chicago’s fourth line centre), and the ghost of Tomas Plekanec. Wait, don’t they have Alex Galchenyuk? Hasn’t he been pretty good when he plays at center? Oh, he’s playing on the fourth line. Well, at least you have Carey Price.

All this trash talking against the Habs before the game, and… Jeff Petry scores. The combination of the puck somehow not hitting anyone on the way to the net despite going through half the players on the ice, and said half the players on the ice screening Freddy, it was a surprisingly easy goal for Petry for his first of the season.

The Leafs played very badly after that goal for the first stretch of the game. They either didn’t have the puck, or were handling it like a grenade. It was very poor play from them before the first commercial break.

That changed after the commercial break. No, literally right after the commercial break. James van Riemsdyk stops for no one, as they barely had time to cut back from commercial before he scored (yes, it was a fluky goal, don’t @ me).

You know what isn’t fluky? Matthews going end to end, making Jordie Benn look like a literal pylon (he even has the white stripes), and absolutely disrespecting Price by firing it so hard he couldn’t react to it. Just like that, it’s 2-1, 44 seconds after tying it.

The Habs would respond though, reaching the two goal plateau in a game for the second time this season. That’s cute. And who else but Galchenyuk, who they decided to give a try on the first line, and it panned out. Galchenyuk would get the monkey off of his back, and score his first of the season. That just leaves *counts by hand, runs out of fingers* 12 more Habs, and they’re done!

The Leafs started the second period the same way they started the first – terribly. The Habs were all over the puck again early on, and the Leafs couldn’t generate much. But that all changed midway through the period, as the Matthews-Nylander dominated the play, and it resulted with Matthews batting in his second of the game. Oh wait, it was slightly too high, doesn’t count.

Right after, Karl Alzner made a very un-Karl Alzner-like pass to Drouin, who deflected the puck in and gave the Habs a 3-2 lead. That’s right, for the first time this season, the Habs have three goals in a game. That ties Toronto’s lowest output in a game this season.

But, only 1:07 later, Price made a save, but the puck squeaked through him, and after several seconds of jamming the puck in, Marleau snuck the puck past the line for only a second, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t count, and the Leafs would tie the game again.

After that, the Leafs dominated the play, and had the Habs scattered around their own zone. Nothing came of it, aside from a late power play for the Habs, but the rest of the period saw no goals.

The Leafs maintained their trend of terrible starts to the period in the third, except they stayed that way for most of the period. It was relatively uneventful, except for the numerous Leafs fans who probably had heart attacks from all the scoring chances for Montreal.

No goals though, and we would see overtime.

I’d describe overtime for you, but it only took Auston Matthews 48 seconds to beat Carey Price, after an amazing saucer pass from William Nylander was batted down out of mid-air, and Matthews wired the bouncing puck past Price for his second of the game, his second OT game winner, and the first game winner against Montreal in three and a half years.

Streak busted. Hopefully, the first of many.