Auston Matthews put 6 shots on net Saturday night in Toronto, and the Maple Leafs still walked off the wrong end of a 4-1 result.
The reaction online leaned positive anyway. Matthews looks dangerous again, one account posted. The shot count backs that up.
He added an assist and finished at a -2 across 25:45. The volume was there. The result wasn't close.
Gavin McKenna got 19:13 in his turn, put 3 shots on goal and took a minor along the way.
Matthew Knies told the Toronto media on Friday he's back to 100 percent. He managed one shot and a -2.
That's the trouble with camp quotes. The scoresheet gets the last word every single time.
John Tavares logged 26:02 and picked up a helper. William Nylander put 3 on net and took a minor of his own.
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Leafs fans react after Matthew Knies struggles in first game back healthy
Raddysh led everybody on the ice in minutes and scored Toronto's only goal. A defenceman, on a night the forwards found nothing.
It came with the man advantage too. The unit everybody spent the night complaining about was the only one that produced.
Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev were the sole Leafs to finish even. Every other skater in that lineup went minus.
Sergei Bobrovsky faced 5 shots in his first Toronto look and stopped 4 of them.
Anthony Stolarz took 17 and turned aside 15. Neither goaltender got a decision.
Marshall Rifai took 5 penalty minutes after dropping the gloves with Florian Xhekaj. Xhekaj walked away with 7 of his own.
Phillip Danault scored twice for the visitors. That was Montreal's lighter group, the one sent up the highway.
Jim Hiller now has Ottawa in town Wednesday. Two preseason games in, and Toronto hasn't won either of them.
The pace looked fine in stretches. Pace without finish is the most Toronto sentence in hockey.
So what does any of it prove? Reading a roster off one exhibition night works like judging a band by their soundcheck.
Raddysh gave them the only thing worth clipping. The guys getting 25 minutes a night have a few weeks to make that stop being the story.
Is Matthew Knies a legitimate top six forward for the Maple Leafs?
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