Auston Matthews reflects on Maple Leafs’ lack of discipline in loss to Red Wings

Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews felt that his team’s lack of discipline was the difference in Thursday’s 3-1 preseason loss to the Detroit Red Wings.

Icing their projected opening night lineup for the penultimate preseason game, the Leafs got outshot 42-19 in the contest due in part to committing six penalties in the contest (one of which was a double-minor). While goalie Anthony Stolarz was able to keep the team in the game, the Leafs could never get in a groove from the start of the second period onward and did not generate sustained zone time.

Matthews told reporters after the game that he felt the lack of discipline disrupted the rhythm and they could never regain it.

“ I think there’s always gonna be things you wanna clean up. Tonight, we did a lot of good things. Playing more to our structure, forechecking much better, things of that nature. Taking care of the puck, not turning it over as much,” Matthews said. “ But there’s too many penalties, especially in the second period. It’s a really important period with a long change. Just killed momentum and it’s hard to get things rolling again after killing off consecutive penalty after penalty.”

Matthews later acknowledged that there is a new structure being implemented on the penalty kill, which is bound to take some time to adjust and get the feel for it. But the main takeaway for the captain was that no one got injured and they can ramp up their preparations for the start of the regular season on Wednesday.

One player who won’t need much work in between is Stolarz, who looked like he was in mid-season form and ready to pick up where he left off last year.

“He was incredible. I thought he was our best player. He needs some huge saves throughout the whole game,” Matthews said. “Kept us in, kept us in the lead for the first two periods.  We could have done a better job there on some of those goals and clearing out some space, stuff like that.”

Matthews was quick to point out that the team as a whole got through the preseason contest unscathed, and he felt that it was a good takeaway from a game that had no stakes attached to it. The same goes for himself, who looked like he was back to his old self as evidenced by his power-play goal in the first period.

“ Physically, felt really good.  A step better than the previous game I played in,” Matthews said. “We got some time here before Wednesday to have some good practices, continue to push ourselves, battle, compete and make sure that we’re regular season getting ready by Wednesday.”