Leafs teammates rib McMann they’re expecting hat trick every game now
If last night was the first Toronto Maple Leafs game you ever watched, you might think Bobby McMann was the greatest hockey player in the world.
A 27-year-old forward with just 36 NHL games on his resume — and two career goals — heading into last night’s game, McMann ended up being a hero for the Leafs in a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday night.
Called into the shorthanded Leafs lineup after both Mitch Marner and John Tavares were out due to illness — not to mention Morgan Rielly’s five-game suspension — McMann probably wasn’t expecting a career day.
But scoring once in the first period and twice in the third, including a late empty-net goal, McMann more than doubled his career NHL output with his first career hat trick.
“Bobby himself didn’t know he was going to play until he got to the rink today,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Bobby, of course, scored two huge goals for us and a cool empty-netter to finish it off. Terrific end to kind of a strange day for us, quite honestly, with a lot of lineup uncertainty and stuff like that.”
And it seems like he’s raised his teammates’ expectations within the locker room.
“Guys are saying this is the standard now: ‘You gotta get three every game,'” McMann joked with reporters postgame. “Just all fun. Guys are happy with me, which I appreciate.”
McMann posted 21 goals and eight assists in 30 AHL games last season with the Toronto Marlies, while he put up two goals and an assist in six games with the Marlies this year.
At the NHL level, scoring has been a little tougher for McMann, having put up just two goals and five assists in 26 games with the Leafs entering last night.
But his coach is hoping that his big game can be a spark plug moving forward.
“You hope that helps with confidence and makes you feel like you belong in the league. For a guy like Bobby, you want efforts like this and you want the goals to go in, but he is trying to learn to grab onto a role in the league, right?” Keefe added. “He can score. He has done that at the AHL level, but it has been a challenge in the NHL. If you are not going to score — and you are not going to get a hat trick every night — you have to work on all of the other things and do the other things really well. Be physical. Be defensively responsible. Be trusted. Be able to kill penalties. All of those things can help keep you in the league.”
The Leafs return to action on Thursday when they host the Philadelphia Flyers at 7 pm ET.
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