Leafs rookie gets player-of-the-game-belt, comments on the best game of his young career
The Leafs started about as bad as possible last night in Tampa, heading to the first intermission down 3-1 after Ilya Samsonov gave up three goals on four shots. Samsonov was pulled in favour of Joseph Woll, who stopped all 29 shots he faced to help the Leafs pull out a comeback win. Woll wasn't the only one who stepped up during the game, though, as Matthew Knies potted his first two regular season goals in the third period to force overtime.
Following the game, Knies was handed the player-of-the-game belt by Ryan Reaves and was asked about returning to Tampa and what it means for him to play in that building now.
"It's hard for me to come in here & relive some of those memories, but it's nice to keep changing them with better memories."
Knies also admitted that his goals were the result of great plays from Max Domi, but that they also resulted from following the game plan of shooting high.
"That's kind of what they've been harping on us is just to get the puck high... We need to do that more often so that was my first instinct there & just luckily it fell there.
[Scoring a pair of goals] feels incredible. You know, it just feels awesome to get those to fall. Domes made some unbelievable passes there. It just feels really good that we could come out with a win here."
Next up for the Leafs is a Tuesday evening meeting with the Capitals in Washington D.C. and hopefully Knies is up to the task and finds the back of the net once again.
POLL |
OCTOBRE 22 | 214 ANSWERS Leafs rookie gets player-of-the-game-belt, comments on the best game of his young career What percentage chance would you give Knies to win the Calder Trophy? |
0-25% | 71 | 33.2 % |
26-50% | 66 | 30.8 % |
51-75% | 52 | 24.3 % |
76-100% | 25 | 11.7 % |
List of polls |
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Previously on MapleLeafsDaily