It was a rough night for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were soundly defeated 6-2 by the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday evening. Toronto was on the second game of a back-to-back and submitted its worst performance of the young season. Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews gave credit to his opponent, with a clever analogy about the Blue Jackets’ success off the rush.
“The neutral zone was the Autobahn for them tonight,” Matthews said during his post-game media availability. “They were just coming in flying through and we didn’t have very good gaps, very good angles, you know, didn’t transition very well.”
It’s a clever reference to Germany’s federally-controlled motorway where cars are allowed to drive up to 130 miles per hour. Columbus got out in transition relentlessly throughout the contest, capitalizing on turnovers and opportune rebounds from Dennis Hildeby.
Columbus scored two goals in a 52-second span, entered the first intermission with a 3-0 lead, and led 5-0 well into the second period before Matthew Knies put Toronto on the board, with his third goal of the season. Nick Robertson added another goal for the Maple Leafs — his first of the season — in the 6-2 loss.
Matthews had previously scored in nine consecutive games against the Blue Jackets. He registered two shots and a -3 plus-minus in just under 20 minutes of ice time on Tuesday.
“I didn’t feel like we skated very well tonight,” Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube said post-game. “They skated through us all night. We didn’t win many puck battles tonight, didn’t defend very well tonight and that’s what you get. The only thing that was good tonight was the penalty kill.”
Toronto resumes its schedule Thursday against the St. Louis Blues — Berube’s former club, which he led to its first-ever Stanley Cup in 2019 and suffice to say, the Maple Leafs will almost certainly to limit the opposition from cruising through the neutral zone like most German supercars.
