In a thrilling NHL pre-season matchup at the Centre Bell in Montreal, the Toronto Maple Leafs emerged victorious over the Montreal Canadiens with a physical 2-1 win on Saturday evening.
Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube praised his team’s effort, stating, “The group was involved and they’re competing out there, it was a really hard game. I don’t really do a lot — they just go and play. They’re smart guys they know what they’re doing.”
Nicholas Robertson stood out with two goals for the Maple Leafs, while Kirby Dach managed to score Montreal’s lone goal late in the third period.
The game started with a bang as Centre Bell fell silent when Patrik Laine collided with Cédric Paré and Jacob Quillan of the Leafs in what looked like a knee-on-knee hit. Laine was unable to continue playing after the incident.
The collision led to a series of events that saw Arber Xhekaj receive a game misconduct for retaliation, putting the Canadiens at a disadvantage with a seven-minute penalty to kill. With an earlier injury to David Reinbacher, the Canadiens found themselves short-handed, with only 17 players left on the bench.
Montreal head coach Martin St Louis expressed, “It was a very emotional first period and definitely set the tone for the rest of the game. You’re down to 17 players and you have a really short bench. You don’t want to overwork your players, but you’re almost forced to.”
Taking advantage of the power play, Toronto managed to score a goal against Montreal’s netminder Samuel Montembeault when Robertson’s shot found the back of the net. The Maple Leafs’ defense put on a stellar performance for the remainder of the first period, successfully killing off three penalties and limiting the Canadiens’ scoring chances.
Despite struggling in the penalty kill department last season, the Maple Leafs demonstrated a well-organized and effective penalty kill unit that shut down Montreal’s offense throughout the game.
Matthew Knies commented, “It was a special teams battle from the start of the game, and I think we executed. We scored a goal on the power play and we did really well on the penalty kill to shut them down and not give too many chances… It’s just constant pressure. I think we didn’t let them get set up well and if they saw something we never let them get a good opportunity from it.”
