Toronto Maple Leafs’ Mitch Marner skates towards the net while chased by Montreal Canadiens’ Cole Caufield, during second period NHL action in Toronto on Nov. 9.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
Following in the victorious footsteps of the Grey Cup-bound Toronto Argonauts, the city’s hockey club ensured it was a daily double at Montreal’s expense Saturday, easing past the Canadiens with a 4-1 victory.
While picking up two points in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ 16th game of a young NHL season doesn’t carry the same import as the Argos dethroning the defending CFL champions earlier in the day, it did extend the Leafs’ recent regular-season dominance over their Original Six rivals. Saturday’s win was the team’s ninth consecutive victory over the Habs in Toronto, tying the franchise record set between November 1950 and November 1951.
Much like Toronto’s earlier wins this week – against Boston on Tuesday and Detroit on Friday night – this win was both achieved without injured captain Auston Matthews, and powered by the special teams.
After scoring just three power-play goals through the first 12 games of the season, the team has scored at least one in four straight games, and has seven in its three-game winning streak.
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In another of what head coach Craig Berube likes to term “low event” periods, the Maple Leafs suffocated the visiting Canadiens in the opening stanza. Restricting them to just two shots over the first 20 minutes, the most important task for goaltender Joseph Woll – in just his fourth start of the season – was likely maintaining his focus.
Still, despite their defensive diligence, the Leafs rearguard still found time to chip in on the offensive front. Two in particular – Connor Timmins and Simon Benoit – linked up for the opening goal, with Timmins taking the puck from his blueline partner, spinning out of a check from Habs forward Josh Anderson and firing the puck off the back of Montreal centre Christian Dvorak and past goaltender Samuel Montembeault.
The two shots the Leafs conceded over the first period were the fewest they’ve given up in a single period this season, and is right in line with the kind of controlled hockey that Berube wants to play on the defensive end.
Much of the talk in the buildup to this game was about young Canadiens blueliner Lane Hutson, fourth in rookie scoring with seven points before the game. However, the expected inexperience that accompanies a player who entered the contest with just 16 NHL games on his resume was laid bare for all to see on the Leafs’ first power play of the night.
With Kaiden Guhle in the box for holding just after the five-minute mark in the second period, Nylander needed just 29 seconds to collect the puck in his own zone, accelerate through the neutral zone and enter the Canadiens end at pace, twisting Hutson into a pretzel as he cut a path to the net to score his 11th of the season.
The Toronto special teams were just getting started though. Barely three minutes later, with Jake McCabe off for interference, Mitch Marner and David Kampf broke in on a short-handed 2-on-1, with Kampf patiently outwaiting Montembeault before teeing up Marner to shoot into the empty net for his fourth of the season, extending his point streak to eight games. The goal was also the 10th short-handed marker in his career, pulling him into a tie with Rudy Migay and Lanny McDonald for ninth-most in team history.
The McCabe power play actually led to two goals in 1:02, with the Canadiens getting on the board just before the halfway point of the period when Brendan Gallagher swatted a rebound out of mid-air and past Woll for his seventh of the season, with Emil Heineman and Hutson earning assists on the play.
Less than three minutes later, the Leafs restored their three-goal cushion. Once again the power play cashed in, with Joel Armia off for tripping. Nylander and Marner set the table, working the space before finding Tavares in the slot, as the former captain fired home his eighth of the season, and third in barely 24 hours.
The Canadiens – who entered the game on a five-game losing streak – finally showed some urgency in the third period, generating more shots in the final stanza than across the first two.
But it was too little too late, and the Leafs absorbed most of their early threat in the period to hold on to the victory. Woll picked up his second victory of the season, on the back of 20 saves, while Montembeault finished with 23.
