Auston Matthews led the club with a pair of goals and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Islanders 5-0 on Friday night to open the road trip against the Black and White.
Matthews scored a power-play goal and added a late short-handed goal as the Maple Leafs — missing several key players due to injury — took the first of five games on their season-opening trip. Marner had a pair of assists for the Maple Leafs, with Mitch Marner, Zach Hyman and John Tavares also scoring. Frederik Andersen stopped 35 shots.
Matthews, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft, is four goals and three assists short of setting a single-season franchise record in the final year of his entry-level contract.
Can’t complain about what Matthews did tonight pic.twitter.com/jvStuYRDR8 — Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) September 1, 2018
“The players really had to step up when he wasn’t playing,” Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “He’s definitely been a steady hand. His performance tonight — that was unreal.”
The Maple Leafs came out strong from the start. They held the Islanders without a shot for the first 11:19 of the game.