Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews raved about Anthony Stolarz’s performance, following their 2-1 overtime victory over the New York Rangers on Thursday.

On a night where offence was tough to come by for both teams, Stolarz and Igor Shesterkin put on a clinic with quality saves at both ends of the ice. Stolarz out-battled Shesterkin, and Matthews glowed about Toronto’s starting goaltender after the game.

“He was incredible tonight. Just another example of what a gamer he is,” Matthews said. “He just goes in there, he wants to compete, and he’s a big communicator back there.  He lets you know what’s going on and will let you know when he doesn’t like what he’s seeing.  I think you can really appreciate that, and he definitely made some huge saves for us tonight and all periods and all situations.”

Aside from Juuso Parssinen’s goal in the third period, Stolarz came up clutch many times and was a major reason why the Leafs were able to secure the two points in this game. Matthew Knies scoring the team’s first power-play marker and Matthews delivered the timely OT winner.

When breaking down the overtime goal, Matthews credited William Nylander for opening up room for him to get to the net and tap home the winner.

“Had some time and space, and I’ve seen it a lot of times before, just playing that little give and go,” Matthews said. “He’s a great passer and he put it right on my tape, so it was a really nice play. And [Morgan Rielly] made a great play in our zone there to break up that play and get us on that two-on-one there with a lot of time and space.”

While another win in the early going is always bound to feel good, the city of Toronto does have their attention more on the Toronto Blue Jays who are in the midst of a playoff run that has them duking it out with the Seattle Mariners in the ALCS. The Leafs have been caught up in the hoopla, including moving up the start time of their game against the Detroit Red Wings on Monday so that fans could watch both contests uninterrupted.

During the third period, Scotiabank Arena came alive when Andres Gimenez’s two-run home run gave the Blue Jays the lead in Game 4.

“I don’t think they put anything on the scoreboard, but you could tell that something was happening in the game cause randomly the crowd just started cheering, so it was great,” Matthews said.  ”It was a grind tonight, It was back and forth, a little bit of a stalemate there at times. But  you’re gonna have those nights and those games where you gotta grind it out and try to fight for that extra point. We did that tonight, so we’ll take it.”