Toronto Maple Leafs Play Great, Shutout the Nashville Predators

The Toronto Maple Leafs finally won a game by a decisive margin. They beat the Nashville Predators by 4-0 on Saturday night in a great bounce-back game for goaltender Ilya Samsonov.

The Toronto Maple Leafs played against some familiar faces in the Predators lineup on Saturday night. Tyson Barrie, Luke Schenn, and Ryan O’Reilly are all Predators this season. It’s been a few seasons since Barrie wore the blue and white, but Schenn and O’Reilly were part of the Leafs playoff run last season.

For Samsonov, Saturday’s victory is his first since beating the Detroit Red Wings on November 17th. The shutout is his first since April 1st, 2023 when the Leafs beat the Ottawa Senators 3-0. Samsonov has struggled this season, but he looked good on Saturday night, even with a little help from his goalposts. (Stats from hockey-reference.com)

The Leafs were not only good in net, but the whole lineup played well from top to bottom. It was a whole team effort on Saturday, and they earned the 4-0 victory. The penalty kill was perfect, the power play went one for five, and the Leafs got some secondary scoring.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Nashville Predators Game Recap

The Toronto Maple Leafs looked to be involved in a goaltender duel between Samsonov and Kevin Lankinen. That is until David Kampf scored with 5:45 left in the second period to give the Leafs the 1-0 Lead. Conor Timmins sent a perfect tape-to-tape pass to Kampf, who split the defense and got the puck over Lankinen’s glove.

After the Kampf goal, it didn’t take the Leafs long to score their second goal of the night. Auston Matthews scored his 17th of the season with 2:03 left to play in the second period. The play started with William Nylander in the defensive zone, who then played tic-tac-toe with Matthews, ending with Matthews putting the puck past Lankinen after it looked like the goaltender had stopped the cross-crease pass.

During the third period, with 6:05 left in the game, Jake McCabe hit Luke Evangelista into the boards by the player bench, resulting in Evangelista hitting the stanchion portion of the glass. The result was Kiefer Sherwood hitting McCabe and the two getting into a brief fight.

Matthews scored his second goal of the game and 18th of the season with 3:11 left in the game. The goal came on the power play, with the assists going to Nylander and John Tavares. For Tavares, it was career point 998, inching the Leafs captain closer to career point 1,000.

Noah Gregor would score a short-handed goal on an empty net to increase the Leafs lead to 4-0. That is how the game would end, improving the Leafs record to 14-6-4 through 24 games.