Without Matthews, lacklustre Maple Leafs lose to Islanders
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Craig Berube had it figured out.
How could the Maple Leafs win, again, without captain Auston Matthews?
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“When I look back on the games he was out, we checked extremely well,” the Leafs coach said a couple of hours before the Leafs and New York Islanders faced off on Saturday night.
“We need to (do that again). Guys stepped up big for us. I expect the same.”
It didn’t happen.
The Leafs were outworked by the Islanders at Scotiabank Arena, and the result, a 6-3 loss, was deserved.
Toronto was 7-2 in games Matthews missed in November because of an upper-body injury. After aggravating it in Buffalo on Friday night in a win against the Sabres, he did not play.
The Leafs fell to 4-3-1 in the second game of back-to-back sets.
William Nylander scored two goals, bringing him to 23 on the season.
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Noah Dobson, Oakville native Isaiah George, with his first NHL goal, and Mathew Barzal scored in the third period for the Islanders.
Bobby McMann got one back late in the game. Barzal’s was into an empty net.
There were no penalties in the game, marking the first Leafs match since Nov. 24, 2018, at home against Philadelphia that neither side took a penalty.
The Leafs couldn’t have been less interested in the first period and were down 3-1. Winning puck battles and backchecking weren’t in Toronto’s game plan.
Before five minutes had ticked away, the Islanders scored on two of their first three shots. Maxim Tsyplakov had some time to deposit a shot behind Joseph Woll at 1:49, and at 4:48, Bo Horvat came off the wing and snapped a shot to the far side on Woll.
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Berube called a timeout and lit into his group, and though Nylander got the Leafs on the scoreboard at 12:29 with a backhand that brought to mind what Mats Sundin used to do, the Leafs couldn’t keep that momentum.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored on a rebound at 16:08 after Woll made a good save on Anders Lee. No one thought to pick up Pageau, and the visitors’ two-goal lead was restored.
Nylander scored his second of the game at 5:43 of the second after David Kampf made a couple of nifty moves to get him the puck in front.
In Buffalo, not only did Matthews absorb a big hit by the Sabres’ Tage Thompson, he was cross-checked in the ribs by Dennis Gilbert.
“I don’t think he’s targeted just because Tage Thompson hit him,” Berube said. “He’s just trying to get his team going. I don’t see him being targeted. He got hit.
“He took that cross-check. For me, that’s a penalty.”
The injury is one that initially popped up in training camp.
Berube couldn’t say whether Matthews would play on Monday against the Winnipeg Jets in the Leafs’ last game before the three-day Christmas break.
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