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Toronto Maple Leafs

It Wasn’t Auston Matthews & Mitch Marner’s Fault After All

Maybe Toronto Maple Leafs’ fans are barking up the wrong tree when they cornered both Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner as the culprits for the team’s seven-game loss to the Montreal Canadiens. Sure they didn’t score more than a single goal; and, sure, that’s a problem. Still, the way things have turned out sort of vindicates them a bit.

Auston Matthews UD Card Toronto Maple Leafs MVP
Auston Matthews UD Card Toronto Maple Leafs MVP

Not having your big guns score during the playoffs will also part of the challenge the team will face next season. How does the strong offense still be the strong offense in the postseason? How can the team’s best players remain the team’s best players and figure out how to slice through and score on a shutdown defensive team?

Related: Dougie Hamilton to the Maple Leafs: Ain’t Happening!

The Maple Leafs Now Have Friends in Frustration

Tonight, the story in Las Vegas stayed the same as it’s been for the entire playoffs the Montreal Canadiens have played. The Vegas Golden Knights struggled to find any offense at all against the Canadiens’ suffocating defensive tactics. The Canadiens’ players dominated the neutral zone and gave the Golden Knights’ forwards no space at all to get an offense going.

Funny, Montreal had played 16 playoff games before Tuesday’s 4-1 victory. I those 16 games, they’ve shut down Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Nik Ehlers, Blake Wheeler, Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, Mark Stone, and Max Pacioretty. OK, Pacioretty scored tonight – the team’s lone goal; however, that still gives these big-time NHL goal scorers only three goals in total during all those games.

Carey Price Has Been Great, But He’s Not Alone

All these great forwards have been shut down on the score sheet; and, although Carey Price has been really good, it just isn’t him. It’s the entire team and the defensive style it plays. That defense has shut down the Golden Knights, as it did the Winnipeg Jets, and it did the Maple Leafs.

Ask Mark Stone, who’s had almost nothing in terms of scoring. If he ever goes out to lunch with Matthews and Marner, they’ll have more to share than the bill. The Canadiens’s fourth line of Eric Staal, Corey Perry, and Joel Armia is simply that difficult to play well against. They’ve been smothering the opponents and scoring themselves.

Still, Price Needs Some Credit, Too

In tonight’s game, Carey Price stopped all except one of 27 shots in the 4-1 win to give his team a 3-2 series lead against the Golden Knights. No goals in 40 minutes for Vegas; three goals in 40 minutes for the Habs. In his last four games, Price has only allowed seven goals.

Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens

Price has limited the Golden Knights to fewer than two goals in each of the last four games, and he’s won three of those games. The 33-year-old Canadiens’ netminder has been solid for his team; and, now they’re a single victory away from the Stanley Cup Finals. 

Related: Corey Perry: The Player the Maple Leafs Let Get Away

When the Maple Leafs Look Back, How Do They Feel?

There’s no doubt that the Maple Leafs could have beaten the Canadiens if either Matthews or Marner would have found a way to score a goal. They didn’t. Perhaps it’s consolation or perhaps it’s not that the Maple Leafs are in good company with the Jets and the Golden Knights. All three strong teams have come up empty over and over again.

But the point is that maybe the Maple Leafs’ loss can’t all be pointed at Matthews and Marner. Maybe they weren’t that bad after all; instead, maybe it was the Canadiens being really good.

5 Comments

5 Comments

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  3. Mona Gaw

    June 23, 2021 at 12:06 pm

    Oh yes the Canadians are all heart. They have a great defense and a great goalie with good forwards. I love the leafs always did but the Canadian has shut most players off. The one thing that could of saved the leafs is if Marner would had given an inch more and not have made the stupid play shooting the puck out of play. In my opinion between the leafs, the jets, the knights, the leafs played the best games against Montreal, they had a 3 1 lead to shut them out and failed unfortunately. Now I am cheering for the Canadians cause I’m a Canadian.

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