Rookie phenom Auston Matthews wasn’t much of a factor in his home debut for the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, but that didn’t matter.
The Maple Leafs scored three quick goals against the Boston Bruins at Air Canada Centre en route to a commanding 4-1 victory over their division rival.
Here’s how it all went down.
ROCKY START
Finally, someone other than Matthews stepped up offensively for the Maple Leafs, which wasn’t good news for the Bruins in the first period.
Connor Brown, Mitch Marner and James van Riemsdyk all scored for Toronto within the first 13-plus minutes to give the Maple Leafs an early 3-0 lead on surprise starting goalie Anton Khudobin.
The Bruins didn’t enter the intermission scoreless, though, thanks to David Pastrnak. John-Michael Liles and Brad Marchand set up Pastrnak, who scored a power-play goal from a tough angle near the circle at the 17:35 mark.
Despite the lopsided start in goals, the rest of the stats were pretty even. The Bruins actually out shot the Maple Leafs 9-8 and both teams had two power plays.
Perhaps the most exciting moment of the period came when David Backes and Nazem Kadri dropped the gloves.
WHERE DID THE GOALS GO?
After combining for four goals in the first period, neither Toronto nor Boston found the back of the net in the second frame.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying, though. The Bruins once again had nine shots on goal, but Maple Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen stopped them all. He had 17 saves on 18 shots through the first 40 minutes.
Khudobin rebounded from a rocky start to make five stops in the second frame.
THAT’S ALL, FOLKS
Things didn’t get better for the Bruins in the final frame.
Khudobin allowed his fourth goal of the game early in the third when Milan Michalek deflected a shot from the point into the back of the net.
Khudobin ended up stopping 20 of 24 shots, while Andersen made 24 saves.
UP NEXT
The Bruins will close out their three-game road trip to begin the season Monday in Winnipeg, where they’ll face the Jets at 8 p.m. ET.
Thumbnail photo via Dan Hamilton/USA TODAY Sports Images
