WINNIPEG - Auston Matthews became only the fourth player in Maple Leafs history to score 50 goals in a season as Toronto outplayed, out shot, and outscored the Winnipeg Jets 7-3 last night at the Scotiabank Arena. Matthews goal was an empty netter when the game was out of hand. Matthews joins Dave Andreychuk, Rick Vaive (three times) and Gary Leeman as the only Leafs to reach the 50 goal mark.
The Jets actually jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead after Blake Wheeler and Paul Stastny scored before the game was 8 minutes old. After that it was pretty much all Toronto. The Leafs outshot the Jets 38-23; Eric Comrie was shaky in net for Winnipeg with 31 saves and a 0.838 save percentage while Toronto netminder Erik Kallgren basically had the night off making 20 saves.
The Jets other scorer was Nikolaj Ehlers while the Leafs also got goals from Mark Giordano, John Tavares, Ilya Mikheyev, Timothy Liljegren and a pair from William Nylander.
Not that it was the reason for the Jets loss, but once again the officiating was questionable at best. The NHL has a serious problem on their hands with the lack of quality referees.
The 33-26-10 Jets start a three game homestand tomorrow night when the Los Angeles Kings come to town. Puck drop is 6pm (Citytv, SN360, 680 CJOB/Power 97).
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