Auston Matthews, Pontus Holmberg Show Some Backbone for the Maple Leafs in St. Louis
Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews and depth forward Pontus Holmberg showed their feisty sides on Saturday against the St. Louis Blues.
After taking a 1-0 lead into the first intermission of their game against the Blues on Saturday, the Leafs came out flat in the 2nd period, resulting in the Blues scoring a trio of unanswered goals to take a 3-1 lead into the 2nd intermission.
In the third period, things got very chippy between the two clubs, starting with Blues defenseman Ryan Suter drilling Mitch Marner away from the puck near the St. Louis net -- a play which Auston Mattews took exception to, delivering a stiff cross-check to Suter, who was sent crashing to the ice. Unfortunately, Matthews was the only player assessed a penalty on the play, even though Suter's hit on Marner was quite clearly interference.
During the Matthews penalty, the game really started to wind up, with the Leafs delivering some very heavy checks from David Kampf and Jake McCabe, and when the Blues pushed back, the fur began to fly, resulting in a brief fight between Pontus Holmberg and Pavel Buchnevich.
The Leafs have shown in their first season under Craig Berube that they're not about to be pushed around. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Leafs have become the ones doing the pushing, much to the delight of their loyal fan base.
The Leafs did make a late push in an attempt to tie the game, but a late Pavel Buchnevich goal into the empty net sealed the deal for the Blues. Still, it was nice to see some backbone from the Leafs either way.
