PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Auston Matthews tied the league lead for goals with his 33rd of the season as the Maple Leafs defeated the Pens 4-1.
It didn’t take Toronto long, 21 seconds to be exact. After the Pens cleared the puck into the Toronto zone, a pass almost intercepted by Bryan Rust was regained by T.J. Brodie and he found a wide open to Auston Matthews at the blue line for a breakaway goal on the first shot of the game to make it 1-0 Leafs. He tied the league lead with his 33rd goal of the season.
Both teams had a power play and multiple chances to score but both goaltenders were stellar in the period as Toronto took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.
In the second period Toronto extended the lead with a power play goal from Morgan Rielly assisted by Jack Campbell on an end to end goal. Then when the Penguins were on the power play in the final 2 minutes of the period, David Kampf scored his 7th goal of the season on a shorthanded goal assisted by Morgan Rielly to make it 3-0 Leafs after two periods.
Pittsburgh got on the board early in the third period with an Evgeni Malkin rebound goal off a pad save from Campbell. Malkin's 6th goal of the season was assisted by Jeff Carter. But the two goal deficit didn’t last long after a blocked shot from Mitch Marner turned into a rush that led to a Marner pass to Michael Bunting in front of the net for a goal to make it 4-1 Leafs.
“We just weren’t good enough tonight,” said Mike Sullivan. “You know, we didn’t execute hard enough, I don’t think we were hard enough to play against. You can’t give a team of that caliber those types of opportunities that we gave them tonight,”
Jack Campbell Dominates
Pittsburgh outshot the Leafs 46-29 but Jack Campbell was on fire only giving up one goal and made a season high 45 saves. It was Campbell’s best effort in weeks as he held a potent offense in the Penguins to just the one goal.
Power Play And Penalty Kill Suffered
The Maple Leafs came into the game with the most efficient power play in the NHL and the Penguins had the second best penalty-killing unit, but the Maple Leafs were able to score on the power play and short-handed, including a Morgan Rielly end to end goal that just shouldn’t happen from a defenseman.
The Pens had 5 power play opportunities and were stopped on all 5 of them.
“That’s something that’s going to hurt you against a team like this,” said Sidney Crosby. “Our power play hurt us, it gave up a goal and didn’t get any so it was a big swing there.”
The Penguins having power play struggles has not been the norm and it’s been frustrating Crosby said.
“You gotta learn from it but obviously try to move by it. We know we can be better and we gotta execute better but for whatever reason we didn’t. We just gotta do a better job executing.”
Up Next
Pens are back home on Sunday against the Carolina Hurricanes at 1:00. Carolina is coming off a 3-2 OT loss on Wednesday night.