Matthews breaks tie in third period to help Maple Leafs defeat Capitals

TORONTO -- Auston Matthews scored the go-ahead goal in the third period, and the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Washington Capitals 3-2 at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday.

Matthews, who won the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP last season after leading the League with 60 goals, deflected a point shot from Mark Giordano that went off Charlie Lindgren's blocker before rolling down his back and into the net to give Toronto a 3-2 lead at 6:55.
"Definitely, it was the effort we wanted tonight, and it was just a nice bounce-back game after [losing to the Montreal Canadiens] last night," Matthews said. "I thought we played really hard, they played [hard] on their end as well. It wasn't an easy game. It took a full 60-minute effort there from everybody."
Ilya Samsonov made 24 saves in his debut for the Maple Leafs (1-1-0).
"A lot of emotion, you know, in the first period," said Samsonov, who played his first three seasons with the Capitals. "First game with the Leafs for me and with my old team, but you know, I'm enjoying it. We get some smiles right now. We win an important game for us. Everything is good.
"It was unbelievable, the fans were so loud. Unbelievable. I really enjoyed playing here."

Nic Dowd and Marcus Johansson scored, and Lindgren made 36 saves in his debut for the Capitals (0-2-0).
"We're doing enough not to win. We've got to clean that up just a little bit," Washington coach Peter Laviolette said. "The more you can remove what is wrong with the game, the mistakes you make, the more you can clean it up, the better chance you have at being successful. And to boot, we are not getting the run support to cover something like that. If you make a mistake but you score five goals, you talk about the mistake inside of a win."
The Maple Leafs killed off the final 41 seconds with the Capitals playing 6-on-4 after Mitchell Marner took a high-sticking penalty and Lindgren was pulled for an extra attacker. They also killed off a slashing penalty by Nicolas Aube-Kubel at 16:15.
"Some huge blocks from [TJ] Brodie and [Justin] Holl facing a power play like that, and a guy who can obviously shoot the puck on the other side like [Alex] Ovechkin, and I thought Samsonov stood tall," Matthews said.
The Maple Leafs went ahead 1-0 at 6:40 of the first period when John Tavares tapped in a pass from Morgan Rielly at the side of the net on the power play.
Dowd tied it 1-1 at 9:57, one-timing a pass in the slot from Erik Gustafsson, who was behind the net.
Johansson put the Capitals up 2-1 at 13:52 of the first period when he shot between Samsonov's blocker and chest protector from the right face-off dot.
"After the second goal, a little bit of a wake-up call for me," Samsonov said. "I needed to do [something] a little bit different. [I was] a little bit nervous. It's hard when you get nervous, your reaction is slow, you're moving bad, but after this, I played better and we got unbelievable work [done] today."

Toronto outshot Washington 21-11 in the first period.
"As a goalie, you definitely like feeling the puck," Lindgren said. "They threw everything but the kitchen sink in that first period. They came out flying. They've got a great crowd here and I think they probably fed off that. They're a really talented team. I knew they were going to get their chances and I thought our guys did a really good job tonight staying in the fight and giving us a chance to win."
Calle Jarnkrok tied it 2-2 at 3:53 of the second period when he deflected a pass from Alex Kerfoot over Lindgren's right pad at the top of the crease. It was his first goal with the Maple Leafs after signing a four-year contract July 15.
"We played with more purpose tonight," Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. "It was a tough game, a hard game, ultimately could have gone either way, but I liked how our guys stuck with it, got the goal we needed in the third period, and did a good job after that. Even with the penalty kills late, we did a good job."