The Maple Leafs erased 4-1 and 5-4 deficits in a classic Bob Cole “everything is happening”-style hockey game to kick off the 2026 portion of the schedule in thrilling fashion.

This was no Picasso defensively (or in net, for Joseph Woll), but playoff-bound teams need to win a few wild ones along the way over an 82-game season, and there are a few of these types of games every year for every team. The goaltending isn’t sharp (at either end), and a few mistakes end up in the back of the net early. Now you’re chasing it and pushing for offense, and the game becomes a track meet where you’re hoping to score your way back into it without giving up too many the other way that would take you out of it. Before you know it, you’re in a balls-to-the-wall, last-goal-wins contest.

The Leafs have scored 25 goals in their last five games (4-0-1), five via the power play. It’s not that the Leafs were really struggling for even-strength offense before this stretch (just for power-play goals), but there is a different feel to their puck play of late. It’s more confident and connected. There was the distinct feeling that the Leafs thought they could score on any shift in this game, that they believed they were never out of it. And most notably of all, their captain is finally driving the bus.

After months and months of “what the hell is happening here,” watching Auston Matthews dominate some shifts, strip pucks, attack the slot aggressively, and blow pucks by goalies over the last three games has been like emerging from a long, terrible winter and feeling the spring sunshine on your face for the first time in what feels like forever.

If the Leafs had any chance of going on the run required to make the playoffs (let alone do any damage there), a switch had to flip at some point with #34. Three games do not a season make, but watching Matthews look like Matthews again provides a genuine reason for hope.

There is too much to cover in a blow-by-blow recap of this rollercoaster 11-goal game, but we should cover most of it in the post-game analysis.

Post-Game Notes

– Dennis Hildeby has been thrown into games cold five times this season already. His save percentage in those minutes? .947 (72 saves on 76 shots). After the save of his season so far at the end of this game, it warmed the heart to see the fired-up celebration from his teammates around him. Hildeby’s been a total gamer for the Leafs through injury adversity and/or off nights from his partner.

– If there was a blemish on Auston Matthews’ hat-trick/four-point game tonight, it was the 2-0 Jets goal (as well as the turnover before the Domi penalty leading to the 5-4 Jets goal). Obviously, he perfectly deflected it into his own net, but it was less about that and more about the misread defensively leading up to it. Bobby McMann was first back into the defensive zone and assumed center duties vs. Adam Lowry in a 3v3 situation down low. Matthews was late to recognize he was standing in the middle with no one near him, as a Jets defenseman (Dylan DeMelo) had an acre of space and a year and a half of time to wind up a shot.

– It is noteworthy that Craig Berube used Scott Laughton to spell the Scheifele matchup to some degree at five-on-five, as opposed to loading it all on the Matthews line, which shouldn’t play a hard-match role against elite lines, especially when McMann and Domi are on the wings and they’re at home. Laughton took about four minutes of it, leaving Matthews with around eight minutes vs. the Jets’ top line. The Jets were up 2-1 in goals in the Scheifele vs. Laughton minutes, but neither goal was on Laughton. One goal (the 4-1) was on Myers, and the other was a 3v2 rush where Laughton jumped the boards into a 3v2 against, with Laughton as the defenseman on the play. The Leafs’ goal inside this matchup featured a nice play from Laughton to stop up and find Oliver Ekman-Larsson as the trailer for the 4-2 goal — a nice play/primary assist to get the comeback started. That goal, plus his assist on first Matthews goal, puts OEL on a 14-goal, 52-point pace over 82 (that’d be a 10-goal, 23-point increase over last year).

– Philippe Myers played just 8:41 tonight, and only 2:40 after he blew it on the 4-1 Scheifele goal five minutes into the second period. Matt Benning is healthy, has been good with the Marlies this season, is right-handed, and has significantly more experience as a competent bottom-pairing NHL defenseman than Myers. It’s past time to make the switch, to at the very least evaluate a different option with Chris Tanev out long-term.

– Picking up that slack with the Leafs more or less down to five D/down a right-shot D: Troy Stecher with a whopping, team-leading 24:58. He finished +2, including scoring the big 5-5 goal, moving him to 22-12 in five-on-five goals in his 21 games as a Leaf. Stecher is also the only Leaf regular (forward or defense) above water in five-on-five shot attempt share right now. He moves the puck smartly and efficiently, but his ability to evade pressure and break pucks out himself with his feet stands out as a really nice feature of his game, one that the Leafs’ blue line sorely needed more of. He’s got a great motor; very competitive and switched on from the beginning to the end of his shifts, all night long.

I’m stretching hard to find a past Leafs waiver claim this impactful. Chad Kilger scoring 17 goals in ’05? Pretty funny that one of the better waiver claims in NHL history (claimed away from the Leafs by Chicago, in Steve Sullivan’s case) is now on the team’s bench, coaching the team’s power play as this amazing Stecher storyline plays out on the ice.

– Laughton’s usage allows the Leafs to deploy this Nic Roy line with Nick Robertson and Easton Cowan as a more sheltered scoring unit against other teams’ fourth lines (they primarily matched up against Namestnikov, Koepke, and Nyquist tonight). They’ve generated some nice extended offensive-zone shifts in the past few games, and Robertson hit a post and also missed a half-empty net tonight (Roy almost scored in tight early in the first period as well). It took some time to acclimate, but Roy has been as advertised of late: Big and strong on pucks down low/along the walls, with enough skill to facilitate for his linemates. If he’s ready to return, I’d be curious to see William Nylander join the line with Roy, while leaving the top two lines the same for Saturday.

– On that note, giving Matthew Knies and Auston Matthews some time apart has been beneficial for both parties and the team at large; it was odd to see them together again in the morning skate lines, but the right call was made at game time. Knies didn’t bear down on his two good looks vs. Eric Comrie in this one, but his slip pass off the wall to Matias Maccelli for the 4-4 goal was a thing of beauty. Knies is up to seven points in his last five since the split, Matthews has eight points in four games, and the team is 4-0-1 in those games with the two apart at five-on-five. It’s not that it isn’t a combination that can and will work again, but sometimes, things run stale, and the combined speed of McMann and Domi on Matthews’ flanks has brought the line to life in transition/off the rush. McMann-Matthews-Domi is at 4-3 in goals and — more impressively — is controlling over 65% of the shots and 70% of the high-danger chances at five-on-five.

– The sequence leading to Max Domi’s costly penalty, where the Leafs tried to break out up the middle in a tied game in the third period, shows the risk inherent to using the middle more vs. just banging pucks off the wall, but the tradeoff is worth it. The Leafs are breaking out cleaner and exiting their zone/entering the other team’s zone with speed to either create off the entry or enable their forecheck.

– The last exhibit in “What a Difference a Functioning Power Play Makes”: it’s a much different feel entering the third period without Matthews’ 4-3 goal late in the second. It was a nice sequence there from Matias Maccelli with time winding down, to quickly regain the zone and fire a nice pass cross-ice. Maccelli then finished his goal really nicely six minutes of game time later (in the third period) to tie it up at 4-4, as he owned a big part of this comeback effort and has been a part of the solution on the power play.

Maccelli is up to six points in seven games since his string of healthy scratches. He’s a hard piece to place in this lineup at times, but he’s helped the team’s puck play at five-on-five and added some much-needed creativity to the power play.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights: Maple Leafs 6 vs. Jets 5

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR