Cullen: 5 Takeaways from Auston Matthews’ return in Toronto’s 2-1 OT loss to the Rangers (+)

Auston Matthews played his first game of the season for the Toronto Maple Leafs and they still had trouble scoring. “We generated more than enough offense to win the game today,” said Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe following Monday’s 2-1 overtime loss to the New York Rangers. “But we didn’t because we didn’t get the puck over the line and that’s the name of the game.”

The Toronto Maple Leafs dominated play for long stretches in their overtime loss to the Rangers but did not get the result they were seeking. Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin turned away 40 of 41 Maple Leafs shots.

“We haven’t scored enough goals at 5-on-5 as a team,” said Keefe. “So we’ve got a number of players, I think, throughout our lineup that we think can break out and the offence will start to come but we are not there yet, obviously, and that was the difference tonight.”

One positive for the Maple Leafs is that they did get Auston Matthews into the lineup for the first time this season.

“One of the dangers, and I spoke with the team a little bit tonight, is that with Auston being back, the natural part of that comes with the fact that guys are going to start looking for him, over-passing, and changing their game a little bit,” said Keefe. “We were just trying to talk to the guys about ‘Let’s just continue to do the things that we have done and Auston makes us a better team. Let’s not adjust or change too much.’”

To the takeaways…