Marner has 3 points, Maple Leafs ease past Senators in Game 1
Mitch Marner had a goal and two assists for the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 6-2 win against the Ottawa Senators in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Scotiabank Arena on Sunday.
Game 2 of the best-of-7 series will be in Toronto on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, ESPN2).
“Just to start off with a win is great, but we have to look forward to the next one. It’s going to be even harder to win the next one and we are going to look to figure out how we can even be a little better Tuesday,” Marner said. “It does help chipping in, it feels good, but the win is the most important thing and that’s what you aim for.”
William Nylander and John Tavares each had a goal and an assist, and Anthony Stolarz made 31 saves for the Maple Leafs, who are the No. 1 seed from the Atlantic Division. Toronto went 3-for-6 on the power play.
“The power play has been rolling for a while,” Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said. “They’re doing a good job. For me, it’s about getting pucks to the net with numbers at the net. I can’t say enough about Tavares and Matthew Knies in those areas, they’ve done an extremely good job at all their work in the interior of the ice.”
Drake Batherson and Ridly Greig scored, and Linus Ullmark made 18 saves for the Senators, who are the first wild card from the East.
“I thought maybe the first five, 10 minutes we were a little nervous, which is probably to be expected,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “We have a lot of guys who haven’t played in the playoffs, but 5-on-5 I liked our game.
“We definitely have to stay out of the box, I’ll say that. I thought there were a couple calls they did a good job selling, but it’s tough on the refs. We can’t take that many penalties, for sure.”
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who missed the final four regular-season games with an upper-body injury, gave the Maple Leafs a 1-0 lead at 7:09 of the first period. He took a pass from Scott Laughton just inside the blue line, skated into the slot and shot past Ullmark’s glove.
“It’s always fun to score a goal, and obviously in the playoffs it’s fun to be able to chip in, so it felt good,” Ekman-Larsson said.
Marner pushed it to 2-0 at 12:18. Auston Matthews gloved down a dump-in along the left boards and sprung Marner, who got between Thomas Chabot and Nick Jensen before shooting glove side on a breakaway.
Batherson cut it to 2-1 at 16:18 when he fended off Morgan Rielly at the top of the crease and chipped in the rebound of Dylan Cozens’ shot.
Stolarz, who was making his first career playoff start, kept Toronto in front when he stopped Brady Tkachuk on a breakaway at 1:10 of the second period. He then slid across the net to save a one-timer from Shane Pinto below the left face-off dot at 3:42.
“No, you step on the ice and have those eager, anxious jitters to kind of get going, but once I stepped out there it was all about having some fun and going to battle with the 19 other guys out there,” Stolarz said of the nerves surrounding his first postseason start.
The Maple Leafs pushed the lead to 3-1 at 4:07 when Tavares put in his own rebound after he deflected Nylander’s point shot on the power play.
Nylander then made it 4-1 at 7:19 with Toronto on a 5-on-3 man-advantage. After Tavares cleanly won a face-off back to him, Nylander skated into the slot and shot across his body, beating Ullmark low to the blocker side.
“The intensity ramps up in playoffs, but you just have to go play, and they (Nylander, Tavares, Matthews and Marner) did that,” Berube said. “I thought they played a solid hockey game.”
Greig cut it to 4-2 at 4:00 of the third period, putting in the rebound of Michael Amadio’s shot in the slot, but Rielly responded 45 seconds later to make it 5-2 when his point shot deflected off Matthew Highmore’s glove in the slot.
“There’s a high-skilled team on the other side, but we’re just going to have to refocus on the next one,” Ullmark said. “It’s just one game. It doesn’t matter how you play one game and you lose it. You can lose 1-0, it’s still going to be a loss. It’s just have a mind of a goldfish and go out and play Game 2 with a little bit of chip on your shoulder and know how intense it’s going to be.”
Matthew Knies shoveled in a loose puck at the top of the crease on the power play for the 6-2 final at 13:13.
“It’s one game,” Nylander said. “It’s nice to get six goals to start off a series, but next game they are going to come out harder, so you’re not going to every time score six goals.”
Tkachuk said the Senators will have to be more disciplined in Game 2 to have a chance to tie the series.
“Not the result we want, but it’s clear as day what the issue was,” said the Senators captain. “We took too many penalties, they scored on it and that’s the game. That’s on us. We need to be more disciplined.”
