Toronto Maple Leafs: Leaders and Best Players Deliver In Game 2

The Toronto Maple Leafs best players delivered in Game 2 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

After losing a critical Game 1, the Toronto Maple Leafs bounced back in Game 2, thanks in large part to their leaders.

It looked as if the Leafs were going to be snake-bitten again midway through Game 2.

Although the Blue Jackets defense was much better in Game 1, the storyline remained the same with their goaltending. Joonas Korpisalo has been brilliant in two games thus far, having stopped 64 of the 66 shots he’s faced.

However, the biggest story for Game 2 was that the Leafs best players delivered.

Toronto Maple Leafs Best Players Deliver in Game 2

If you look around the NHL, a lot of teams second games had a very similar narrative. The teams best players decided to show up and put the team on their back.

Connor McDavid was unbelievable scoring a hat-trick for the Edmonton Oilers, while Sidney Crosby scored the first goal of the game for the Pittsburgh Penguins, en route to them tying their series 1-1 with Montreal.

After watching McDavid and Crosby deliver, I’m sure John Tavares was thinking to himself that he was going to do the same thing.

Just look at Tavares’ numbers from this tweet.

Tavares had 1.33 expected goals, which was more than the entire Columbus Blue Jackets team.

Although every single Leafs player wants to win a Stanley Cup this year, it’s hard to think that there’s nobody more determined than Tavares.

In his first year as captain, it would be Tavares who would get to lift the Stanley Cup first if they ever won, and that’s the main reason he came to Toronto. He could have stayed with the New York Islanders for the rest of his playing career, but decided to come home and win with this young talented group in Toronto instead.

After playing such a great first two periods, Tavares deserved a goal and that’s exactly what happened in the third period.

Having been so close throughout the game already, Tavares buried on a breakaway to open up the game 2-0 for the Leafs.

Tavares finished with eight shots on net and easily could have got a hat-trick if the puck bounced in the right direction.

The other leader on the Leafs also delivered against Columbus in Game 2, scoring the game-winning goal.

Auston Matthews finished the night with one goal and one assist and although he may have played better overall in Game 1, he was deserving of his opening goal.

Matthews may not be the captain, but he’s the leader on the ice for the Leafs and if him and Tavares can keep this play up for the rest of the series, they should be able to move on.

Overall, it was great to see the Leafs best players deliver and kudos to Freddie Andersen on a well-deserved shut-out. We cannot wait for Game 3.