*Photo from The Athletic*
The core 4 of the Maple Leafs has often been the target of scorn in Toronto, especially come playoff time. But they are the reason the Maple Leafs are this good to begin with. William Nylander scored, Auston Matthews added the winner, and the Maple Leafs defeated the Anaheim Ducks 4-3 in a shootout on Wednesday night.
Toronto was playing their first home game since January 5, and made the most of it, despite the empty stadium. Mitch Marner scored in his 4th straight game, and the core 4 of Marner, Nylander, Matthews, and John Tavares each had goals as the Leafs won at home following a 3-2-1 road trip.
Backing up the big guns on offense was Jack Campbell in net, who had himself a game. Campbell turned aside 17 of the 20 shots on goal he saw from the Ducks, posting a .850 save percentage, which was enough to get the Maple Leafs the win. Campbell's record improved to 20-6-3 in 29 starts this season for the Maple Leafs.
Matthews said postgame that "I thought we were really good on special teams and I thought we played pretty well too, creating lots of chances and lots of good opportunities. Their goalie played well. All in all, a pretty solid game. Obviously we would liked to have kept it in regulation, but solid work by the group to get the extra point."
On the power play 17:18 into the game, Marner kicked off the scoring for Toronto, tallying his 10th goal of the season to make it 1-0 Leafs, assisted by Nylander and defenseman Morgan Reilly. Given another power play, Nylander scored with 39 seconds left in the period, doubling the lead to 2-1 with assists from Tavares and Matthews.
In the second period, the Maple Leafs had another opportunity on the power play, and Tavares capitalized, scoring his 16th goal of the season 16:08 into the second, with Marner and Matthews picking up assists. Jakob Silfverberg then scored for the Ducks, making it a 3-1 game at the 17:21 mark, with assists from Sam Carrick and Buddy Robinson.
In the 3rd period, Sam Steel scored for the Ducks to cut the deficit to 3-2, which led to Vinni Lettieri's 5th goal of the season at the 13:23 mark of the 3rd period, tying the game 3-3 and forcing overtime, and eventually a shootout. Jason Spezza and Trevor Zegras scored in the first round for Toronto and Anaheim, but Matthews was the only other scorer in the shootout, making it a 4-3 win.
Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said that "Obviously there's things every game that you want to do better but I for the most part liked a lot about our game today. I thought we were in control of the play for most of the game. The only thing we didn't do was score at 5-on-5. We had a lot of chances and their goaltender was good. Our penalty killing was good when it needed to be, and the power play was outstanding, so lots of good things to take away from the game today."
Drawing the start for the Ducks, and probably the only reason the game went as far as it did, was John Gibson. He had a big night for the Ducks, saving 41 of 44 shots for a .932 save percentage, taking the tough loss, his record now sitting at 14-10-7 so far on the season.
Anaheim defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said that "We're not in that game, we don't get to overtime without Gibson. I think we came out with a much better effort in the third period to tie the game up and he was able to stand tall in overtime. I just wish we were able to get that extra goal for him."
The Ducks get on the move to Montreal for a Thursday matchup with the Montreal Canadiens, with Anthony Stolarz to start the finale of a back to back for the Ducks. Toronto heads back to the U.S. for a Saturday contest with the Detroit Red Wings, with Campbell likely to start.
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