Matthews was merely good in his first 42 playoff games. He never had ‘that’ game…until Monday, when he took Toronto...
That’s a paraphrased sentence many fans or pundits have uttered during a nine-year NHL career that will earn Kucherov a ticket to the Hall of Fame someday. You name it and No. 86 has done it: Hart Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, multiple first-team all-star nods, three 100-point seasons.
And it was Kucherov, ho hum, Monday night in Game 4 at Amalie Arena, flicking the switch and simply taking over early on. He made two did-you-see that plays in the first period. The first was a pretty slap pass, using the threat of his own power play one-timer to freeze the Leafs before he banked the puck in off Alex Killorn’s stick blade. The second was a perfectly threaded long-distance feed to Mikhail Sergachev, catching Leafs goaltender Ilya Samsonov way out of position.
And the number we hadn’t called in that context over the past seven postseasons: the Maple Leafs’ No. 34. Auston Matthews is the 60-goal scorer, the Hart Trophy winner, truest superstar a 105-year-old franchise has ever been lucky enough to have. But while certainly he hadn’t shrunken into a shell of himself during the postseason, he had yet to deliverMatthews has been one of the better players on the ice on plenty of nights during his playoff career.
The Leafs, for the umpteenth season in a row, appeared headed to the deep waters of a long, grinding series against an opponent that simply doesn’t blink under pressure and consistently responds well after defeats. But the did they unthinkable Monday, inverting the infamous ‘It was 4-1’ meme.
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