Leafs' top 5 players explode offensively in Game 2, post an absurd amount of points in 7-2 win
It was an abysmal Game 1 for the Leafs' Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly and they needed to bounce back and carry the Leafs in Game 2. Right from puck drop, they did just that with Marner scoring 47 seconds into the game. The first period saw the five of them combine for 8 points in the frame and send the Leafs to the room with a 3-0 lead.
The rest of the game was much of the same from the big five, as Tavares added a hat-trick over the final two periods, Marner added another 2 points and Rielly ended up finishing the game with 4 assists in what was possibly the best game of his career. While Matthews has yet to score in the series, he did produce a pair of assists last night, fired 3 pucks on net and did the little things away from the puck to help the Leafs. His defensive plays, and puck retrieval helped create a number of opportunities offensively for the Leafs.
In the playoffs, your best players need to play like your best players. For the Leafs, having your top 5 guys combine for 14 points in an important game is not only exciting to watch, but it's also necessary to help lead the team past the first round and into that all elusive second round for the first time in nearly two decades.
With Games 3 and 4 in Tampa, the Leafs will need all five of them to find ways to contribute while playing against tougher matchups as the Lightning have the last change, but with the depth of the Leafs this year, it should be easier for Keefe to shuffle his lines to get them, particularly Matthews away from Tampa's best defensive players.
