Matthews gets four points for Maple Leafs in win against Panthers
Scores twice, has two assists; Reilly has four assists
via NHL.com
Auston Matthews had two goals and two assists for the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 6-1 win against the Florida Panthers at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday.
“I think the first four or five minutes we weren’t very good,” Matthews said. “They kind of had the puck in our zone, and then after that I thought we took over. The very start, we could have been better, but all in all I thought we played a really good game. We were above their good guys all night, didn’t give them too much space, and kind of took them out of the game as well as we could.”
Morgan Rielly had four assists for the Maple Leafs (23-10-2), who have won two in a row after losing four of five.
“Today we just did things right and executed, and as soon as we got one we were going to get more,” Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. “I thought our team worked hard tonight, we started on time and did things the way you should, so that was good.”
Need to know
Maple Leafs forward Zach Hyman was scratched with an ankle injury and will be out at least three weeks. … Maple Leafs defenseman Igor Ozhiganov was scratched after the warmup because of illness and was replaced by Martin Marincin, who had an assist playing 19:04. … Matthews became the 59th player in the NHL modern era (since 1943-44) to score at least 19 goals in his first 21 games of a season. The only other Maple Leafs player to do so was Wendel Clark, who scored 19 goals in his first 21 games in 1993-94. … Rielly matched his NHL career-high with four assists and became the first NHL defenseman to score 40 points this season (11 goals, 29 assists).
Morgan Rielly became the fourth defenseman in @MapleLeafs franchise history to hit 40 points in fewer than 40 personal games:
32 GP - Bryan McCabe in 2005-06
33 GP - Borje Salming in 1976-77
35 GP - @mriles4 in 2018-19
35 GP - Babe Pratt in 1943-44#NHLStats pic.twitter.com/4bQvYMD22W— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 21, 2018
Powering past the Panthers.
Here are tonight's @OntarioLottery Game Winning Numbers.#LeafsForever #That649Feeling pic.twitter.com/t8wMjy9ud8
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) December 21, 2018
Rielly (11-29—40), who sits 12 points shy of matching his career high (2017-18: 6-46—52 in 76 GP), became just the eighth different defenseman in the last 30 years to post multiple outings with at least four assists in a single season. #NHLStats #FLAvsTOR pic.twitter.com/u15J6dqZWL
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 21, 2018