Simmonds, Clifford dress for physical game, but it’s Rielly who drops the gloves.
captain had a pair of goals in a 4-1 win over Winnipeg on Saturday night, the Leafs’ second straight victory after an alarming loss to Arizona last week.
“It was a good road win to start this trip,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe told reporters. Toronto has four more games on the road coming up against Las Vegas, San Jose, Los Angeles and Anaheim.Matthews, though, remains involved, with assists on four of the Leafs’ last five goals. He has five assists in total, and had a single-game-high 13 shot atempts against Winnipeg.
The two weren’t called on to drop the gloves, but Morgan Rielly did, answering a predatory hit by Josh Morrissey on Nick Robertson. Rielly had arguably his best game of the early season, and it was defined by a physical edge in his own zone. “It says a lot about character, the way he carries himself and leads our group,” Tavares told reporters. “After that , we stayed calm and composed as the temperature of the game went up.”
David Kämpf and Michael Bunting, into an empty net, had the other Leafs goals, while Ilya Samsonov stopped 31 of 32 shots for a welcome 4-0 start to the season. Samsonov, just as importantly, has a save percentage of .939. He is now the third goalie to win his first four games as a Leaf, joining Damian Rhodes and Frank McCool .Mitch Marner was buried into the boards, face first, on a hit from Dylan DeMelo in the first period.