Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews will return home Tuesday night to play the Florida Panthers on a roll that has made him the team’s all-time leading scoring leader.
Matthews has six goals and four assists over his past four games. He scored twice in a 4-3 overtime road loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday to reach 421 career goals and move one past Mats Sundin for the most goals in team history.
Matthews’ surge has helped the Maple Leafs record points in six consecutive games (4-0-2).
“I’ve been feeling good for the past couple of weeks, having the puck more,” Matthews said. “I’m trying to use my speed, use my legs to create some chances.”
The Maple Leafs have had problems maintaining leads, however, and it happened again Saturday when the Islanders tied the game twice in the third period, the second time at 17:15 to force overtime.
“Going into the third period, I didn’t think we pushed enough for the third goal,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “I thought we didn’t have the puck enough and sat back a little too much. And we ended up getting a point out of the game. But for me, I think we could have had two. I just think we didn’t stay on our toes in the third.”
Berube said Monday that Jake McCabe could miss up to a week with a lower-body injury. The defenseman did not finish Saturday’s game. Another defenseman, Brandon Carlo, could return Tuesday from foot surgery.
William Nylander (lower-body injury) was put on injured reserve Monday, but it is retroactive to Dec. 27 and he could return soon. Defenseman Marshall Rifai was recalled from the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League.
The Panthers, who are 3-3-1 over the past seven games, will open a six-game road trip riding the crest of a 2-1 home victory Sunday that snapped the Colorado Avalanche’s 10-game winning streak and 13-game points streak (12-0-1).
Despite a growing injury list, the Panthers defeated the Avalanche behind the 27-save goaltending performance of Daniil Tarasov.
Defenseman Seth Jones was out with an upper-body injury sustained in the first period of the 5-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Friday. Panthers coach Paul Maurice said Monday that Jones is week-to-week but should return before the Olympic break next month.
The Panthers injuries already included Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Tomas Nosek, Jonah Gadjovich, Dmitry Kulikov and Cole Schwindt.
“That’s the theme of our year, clearly,” Maurice said. “Every year has something. This year is about having to overcome these injuries. Figure out a way to win without your best players. But if you can do that, there’s a pretty good prize at the end.”
It made the victory on Sunday that much more impressive for the Panthers.
“That was a big, big game for us,” Maurice said. “Losing Seth and playing the most dynamic team in the league, the goalie is going to be an important player in that and Tarasov was. We played hard, we played right, did a lot of really good things to keep them from being as explosive as they can be.”
“Obviously that’s a tough game for them on a back-to-back, so we used that to our advantage,” said Sam Bennett, who scored the opening goal in the first period. “I thought we had a pretty good jump, put some good pressure on them early, and didn’t give them a lot of space.”
–Field Level Media
