Matthews hat trick, milestone win for Keefe as Leafs top Habs

Article content

The ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ took the long road for Auston Matthews, Sheldon Keefe and the Maple Leafs, more than just pushing the play button.

Article content

Their new goal song of the same name created as much pre-game buzz as the season-opening hits exchanged with the Montreal Canadiens, yet they needed it played five times and then a Mitch Marner shootout winner in a 6-5 season-opening thriller Wednesday.

Article content

Matthews scored two of his three goals late in the game when Keefe pulled Ilya Samsonov with plenty of time on the clock.

“It was a bit of a roller coaster,” Matthews understated. “It’s nice to get the win, but there is a lot of things we can clean up, taking care of the puck, some turnover stuff.”

Though the new song by Kid Cudi was heard three times in his honour, including his 300th NHL goal as the fastest Leaf to that mark in 482 games, he said: “Honestly, it didn’t register. I will have to give it a listen later tonight.”

Article content

Article content

Keefe, with regular season win No. 167 to break into the top 100 of NHL coaches, had torn up his script by the end of the evening at Scotiabank Arena.

“The game presented almost everything you could think of,” Keefe said. “It was all over the place, which you don’t love to see. You chalk that up to being early in the season.”

But he didn’t budget for over-passing, lack of big saves from Samsonov, and stumbling defencemen on bad ice creating odd-man rush goals against.

And in all the days leading to this, his staff had not concentrated very much on drills related to killing a 4-on-3 overtime power play, which happened when Matthew Knies was called with less than two minutes to go.

But they killed it to set the stage for Marner getting the lone shootout goal on Jake Allen. The Scotiabank Arena crowd was encroaching on Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sounds of Silence’ after Alex Newhook and Cole Caufield scored early in the third to quash the Leafs own middle period rally.

Article content

Sporting nine new faces in the lineup compared to last October’s opener, including rookie forwards Fraser Minten and Knies, the Leafs had a surprisingly disjointed effort at the start and in spurts for such a hyped event. When not getting in their own way, they were overpassing and firing wildly in putting up 42 shots.

Keefe’s victory moved him past Eddie Gerard, a Hockey Hall of Famer and NHL coach in the 1920s and came into the game with a .622 winning percentage, highest of any in the top 100.

With a 16-2 advantage in shots in the second, the Leafs went from potentially being down 3-0 to a one-goal lead.

When Caufield was detected to have stepped offside (Leafs video coaches Jordan Bean and Sam Kim to the rescue again), Toronto went on to kill a David Kampf penalty and finally got on the board when Noah Gregor found the inside of the post. It was Gregor’s first start a day after signing a minimum-wage contract, quickly followed up by two lethal one-timers, by Matthews and on a power play, from William Nylander.

Article content

The inevitable Ryan Reaves — Arber Xhekaj fight happened at 10:20 after the new Leafs fourth line deterrent took a couple of healthy runs at the visitors. Xhekaj proved the better wrestler at the end, but was given a minor and misconduct as the instigator. Toronto failed to score on its first power play, while Matthews in his new penalty killing role with Marner, had to stick to business when Calle Jarnkrok got the gate for an aggressive hold behind Montreal’s net.

The Habs took the lead at 3:10 when TJ Brodie fell at the Montreal blue line while taking a Gregor pass. Gregor gave hot pursuit to Jake Evans, but the latter beat Samsonov in his first Toronto opening start.

Minten did well other than a near-costly turnover when Kaiden Guhle knocked him off the puck in the Toronto zone on another Montreal opening that could have made it 3-0 .

With the Leafs pressing to make it 4-2, incoming first line left winger Tyler Bertuzzi got in Jake Allen’s crease and prompted the exchange that led to his trip to the box and Caufield’s goal off Brodie’s stick. One of Montreal’s many excellent cycles paid off right after with Newhook tipping a shot from Xhekaj. Timothy Liljegren fanned on a pass that Jesse Ylonen turned into the fifth goal for the Leafs’ ancient rivals, but made a key shot block during the overtime power play.

Defenceman John Klingberg had two assists in his Toronto debut.

[email protected]

Article content