Scott Laughton and Steven Lorentz had themselves a night — combining for four goals and seven points — as the Maple Leafs coasted to a 7-2 thumping of the Canadiens.
It’s the preseason, so the scoreboard doesn’t matter compared to the individual performances of those on the bubble. That said, it’s always more fun to win, and to do it so emphatically in Montreal with a lesser lineup — on the back of tight checking and a complete team performance — removes the bad taste from the end of Tuesday’s contest with the Senators.
To start the game, there really wasn’t much going on in the opening few moments. There were only a couple of shots from the outside. Out of the blue, Scott Laughton blocked a point shot that sprung him on a partial break, and he fired a snapshot blocker side on Sam Montembeault, who played his angle poorly.
Laughton wasn’t done, as a little over halfway through the first, he was sprung on a breakaway off a nice pass from Bobby McMann and hit a nice fake-shot to backhand move to slide the puck five-hole for his second tally of the period.
The Habs answered with a power-play marker from Mike Matheson, but mere seconds later, Matias Maccelli went flying through the crease, drawing a penalty, and managed to keep the play alive from his stomach. The puck was circled up to McMann, who fired one through a screen in front to make it 3-1.
Early on in the second, the Habs added another power-play marker off a Patrik Laine one-timer. On that play, the penalty kill got caught puck-watching while Ivan Demidov dipsy-doodled down low, opening up the seam through the middle.
However, the Leafs once again answered, as Steven Lorentz got in on the action twice in under two minutes. The first came at the tail end of a power play when Laughton fired the puck in front, which deflected off Lorentz’s back leg and into the net. The second saw an almost perfect mirror of the first one — another pucks-to-the-net-with-traffic play, except this time Lorentz deflected the puck with his stick more intentionally.
In the third period, the Leafs added another pair of goals, as Matt Benning fired a slap shot from the point that beat Jacob Fowler for another Lorentz-Laughton-Cowan five-on-five goal (the latter two finished at +4). Moments later, Ryan Tverberg made a nice hustle play on a 1v2 rush, staying with the puck after he got knocked down, working to his right, and firing the puck back to his left, finding a hole in the goalie.
Overall, there were only 38 shots on goal combined between the two teams, and the officials slowed the game down with eight penalties throughout. But seven goals and just 13 shots against made for a satisfying night for the Maple Leafs.
Notes
– The Leafs‘ forward group is mostly set in stone, with four clear duos that make up the foundation for each of their four lines, and one spot per line up for some level of debate. Three of those spots will go to Max Domi, Matias Maccelli, and Bobby McMann. Assuming full health, it means a single spot is up for grabs on the fourth line next to the duo of Steven Lorentz and Scott Laughton, and it seemingly comes down to Calle Jarnkrok, Nick Robertson, and Easton Cowan in competition for the 4RW spot — likely, it’s a competition that extends beyond the end of camp/preseason, given the Leafs have roster/cap flexibility to play with.
For the second consecutive game, Cowan received a look with the Lorentz-Laughton duo, and he didn’t appear out of place. That line wound up scoring four goals (one of Laughton’s came on a shift with McMann and Maccelli), and while Cowan wasn’t the scorer or primary setup man on any of them, he showed the awareness and puck-hounding energy to complement his linemates effectively. The Leafs have made it a priority for Cowan to focus on the defensive and puck management sides of his game and let the offense come as it may, versus forcing it. So far, he’s done a good job of checking those boxes while chipping in two assists. Nothing is locked down yet, but he’s continuing to make an ostensibly uneventful camp (in terms of battles for open jobs) pretty interesting.
– After playing with Auston Matthews in his first-ever preseason game with his new team, Matias Maccelli, unsurprisingly, was a more puck-dominant presence tonight on a line with David Kampf and Bobby McMann. He made a bunch of positive plays, picked up two more assists (after two helpers vs. Ottawa), and he probably should’ve recorded more than two shots. In the second period, there was a sequence on the power play in which Maccelli had three separate looks from the left flank where the Habs backed off and allowed him a lane to walk in and shoot.
Defensively, his work rate was high; there was a nice backcheck and a forced turnover at the blue line when defending an entry, and he generally was in good position in the DZ. Maccelli spent a lot of time on a line driving the offensive side of a checking line with Lawson Crouse and Nick Bjugstad earlier in his career, and Berube sees a fit with Dakota Joshua and Nicolas Roy with that in mind. With the usual caveats about preseason being preseason, the amount of offensive activity he was able to create with McMann and Kampf was a positive indicator of the potential fit in that sort of line/usage tonight.
– Dennis Hildeby played the entire game, as the Leafs want to see as much as they can of the big Swede, knowing there is a possibility he could be the backup to start the season if Joseph Woll is absent, with a back-to-back on tap for the second and third games of the season. He faced a tame workload compared to the previous start, as the Habs only registered 13 shots on goal all night. Most of the action came on the five penalty kills for the Leafs, in which the Habs scored both their goals. There was a partial screen on the first one, but Hildeby should’ve been out at the top of his crease, more aggressively challenging the shooter. On the second Montreal goal, he stood no chance. Not a ton of work to evaluate tonight, but he went the distance and did enough to pick up the win.
– Bobby McMann made a couple of nice plays in this one. He sprung Laughton on a breakaway for a goal and scored a goal himself, sifting a shot through traffic. Coming off the massive scoring drought to end last season, his streakiness is showing itself in preseason with two goals in the last two games, and it’s certainly better to start the regular season hot than wondering if he’s ever going to score again. After an underwhelming camp/preseason led to a game one scratch last season, he’s shown enough so far this camp to earn that 2LW spot on the Tavares-Nylander line.
– The continuity of retaining Steven Lorentz over the summer is showing early signs of paying off with the chemistry he’s showing with Laughton, both at five-on-five and on the PK. They work well together on the forecheck and on the cycle in the OZ, and it makes the other wing an easy place to play, whichever direction Leafs brass goes there. Depth scoring has to be a big piece of the replacing-Marner’s-offense puzzle, and McMann and Laughton breaking through after slow ends to last season are positive signs, as meaningless as preseason can be.
– Building on a solid first preseason game, Philippe Myers had some nice moments defensively, using his size and physicality to separate the puck from attackers, and he did a good job forcing plays to the outside on the rush. The depth on the blue line beyond the top six that ended the playoffs together appears quite sound; outside of Myers, Henry Thrun was much better than his first preseason showing — closing gaps with his size and feet, smoother/cleaner with his puck movement — and Dakota Mermis can take shifts in the NHL competently, as he’s shown over the past few seasons. RD Matt Benning, once an everyday NHLer prior to his injuries, scored and assisted in his first preseason game and finished a +3 while playing nearly 23 minutes.
Game Highlights: Maple Leafs 7 vs. Canadiens 2
Goal scorers: Scott Laughton x2, Steven Lorentz x2, Bobby McMann, Matt Benning, Ryan Tverberg
