Toronto Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews celebrates his goal with teammate Mitch Marner during a game against the Nashville Predators, in Toronto, on Dec. 4.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
On a day when Mitch Marner officially joined Toronto Maple Leafs teammates Auston Matthews and William Nylander in being named to their countries’ respective national teams for February’s 4 Nations Face-Off, the three superstar forwards got a small taste of what best-on-best international hockey could feel like.
Giving them a crash course on this occasion was Nashville Predators goaltender Juuse Saros, named to Finland’s roster last June and almost certain to be its starting goaltender come tournament time. Through two periods Wednesday night, the trio of offensive stars were unable to find a way past the veteran netminder, as Saros made 19 saves to frustrate the Leafs and their fans.
But in a spell of five third-period minutes, Marner, Matthews and Nylander, who will represent Canada, the United States and Sweden, respectively, showed exactly what everyone in Leaf Nation already knows. Whether the games are played in the NHL, the Olympics or on a frozen pond in your backyard, the triumvirate simply knows how to find the back of the net.
“It’s gonna be a lot of fun, really looking forward to it,” Marner said Wednesday after being told he had made the roster by Leafs general manager Brad Treliving earlier in the week. “Obviously, don’t want to look forward to it too much, we still got a lot of hockey between now and then, but it’s gonna be a very cool moment.”
Nylander, who was one of the first six players that Sweden named to its roster last June, was a little more chill about the whole affair.
“I actually haven’t seen it yet. When did it come out?” was his response when asked about Sweden’s roster. “ … I’ll take a look at it. We probably have a really good team anyway.”
On Wednesday night, Matthews scored twice in 118 seconds for the Leafs, turning a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 advantage – both on assists from Marner – while Nylander tacked on a power-play goal just past the five-minute mark – with Marner earning his third assist of the night – as Toronto grabbed a 3-2 victory for its third straight win. For Matthews, the goals were his seventh and eighth of the season, while Nylander grabbed his 16th, with Marner raising his point total to 36 in 25 games.
“Most of the game was pretty tight,” Matthews said after playing just his third game back from an upper-body injury that kept him out nine games. “But in the second, think we kind of got away from just getting the puck in and getting guys in on the forecheck and trying to create turnovers.
“I think a little bit too much one-on-one at times, and I think just the mindset flipped in the third, simplified it, got a goal there early, got another one, and then we were just able to roll all four lines.”
Up until that turning point it had been a frustrating night for the Leafs, who came into the game top of the Atlantic Division and arguably the hottest team in the NHL, having won nine of their previous 11 games.
However, in a league like the NHL, where parity rules on a nightly basis, an upset is always lurking around the corner, and the Predators seemed only too happy to oblige.
Despite “winning the off-season” over the summer – courtesy of its splashy signings of forwards Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and blueliner Brady Skjei – Nashville came into Wednesday’s game second-bottom in the 32-team NHL.
Despite nursing a 2-3-5 record in its last 10 games, its record of late could so easily have been on the uptick. The Predators have been on the wrong end of 3-2 scorelines in their last three contests, with each loss coming in overtime.
Many of the Leafs felt that the Preds were a better team than their record shows, with both Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson using the word “desperate” to describe a team expected to be among the Stanley Cup contenders this season.
In spite of this awareness of their opponent’s plight, the Leafs still found themselves a goal down after the first period, with Marchessault scoring something of a freak goal. The Nashville winger dumped the puck in, only to see it carom off the dasher and deflect into the air, coming back over the net and landing in the blue paint. While Leafs goaltender Joseph Woll tried desperately to locate the loose puck, Marchessault reacted quickest, poking the puck in for his fifth of the year and 500th career point.
The former Conn Smythe Trophy winner became just the third active undrafted player to reach the milestone, joining Artemi Panarin of the New York Rangers and Mats Zuccarello of the Minnesota Wild.
It would be awfully tough to pin the blame for the goal on Woll – who admitted afterwards “he didn’t really see” the puck. The young goaltender had won his past five starts coming into Wednesday’s game, posting a .938 save percentage with one 31-save shutout (against Vegas) over that span.
Despite giving up a late goal to Nashville’s Mark Jankowski with 3:22 remaining, Woll made 22 saves on the night to win his sixth straight start, and did his part to keep the Leafs in the game until the team’s third-period turnaround.
He also had a pretty good vantage point to watch Matthews turn the contest on its head, something that he has seen fairly frequently during his Leafs tenure, and something that Saros and the other goaltenders at the 4 Nations Face-Off will have to get used to.
“He looked pretty good tonight, that’s what I got for you,” Woll said. “Obviously, he’s an unbelievable player, one of the best, if not, you know, in my opinion, probably the best in the world. And he had that on display tonight.”