Matthews says fans were right to boo Leafs in eventual epic comeback
The Toronto Maple Leafs picked up the two points on Monday night, but it wasn’t before the boobirds visited Scotiabank Arena.
Coming out of the first period down 4-1 against divisional rival the Tampa Bay Lightning, a crowd that’s often ribbed for being quiet was pretty vocal about how they felt about their hometown team.
Pulling starter Ilya Samsonov in favour of Joseph Woll after he let in the fourth goal, Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe spoke about the team’s emotions going down big after the opening frame.
“When you come off the bench, you are feeling pretty sh*tty about how the first period went, of course. Everybody is,” Keefe said bluntly.
“When you come back in between periods and you start reviewing some video and looking at some of the stats of the period, it was sort of a reflection of how I felt on the bench. It wasn’t that bad of a period. The puck just kept going in the net. That makes it really hard. You start to think about everything else that is outside of your control.”
But four straight Leafs goals — including two second-period markers from Auston Matthews — gave Toronto a 5-4 lead late into the third. In danger of losing their fifth game in a row, Matthews seemed to understand the fans’ displeasure with the team’s tough stretch.
“They booed us and rightfully so,” Matthews said. “But we don’t want them to go to sleep just yet. We crawled our way back in the game.”
While Brayden Point’s goal for the Lightning with 2:26 left in the game forced overtime, Calle Jarnkrok added his second goal of the night to eliminate any chance of those booing fans going home unhappy.
🍁 THE MAPLE LEAFS WIN 🍁
Morgan Rielly sets up Calle Jarnkrok for the @Energizer overtime winner as the @MapleLeafs win a thriller against the Lightning! pic.twitter.com/E74psQQvV8
— NHL (@NHL) November 7, 2023
Toronto returns to Scotiabank Arena Wednesday night when they host the Ottawa Senators at 7 pm ET.
“We have gotten good results at different times, but our process hasn’t felt great all season. I was starting to feel really good about how things were going and how we were playing. That is a win for me and for our team,” Keefe added postgame. “If we continue to play like that, I am confident that we will win our fair share of games.”