Auston Matthews delivers: Maple Leafs captain finds the net, redemption and relief

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SUNRISE, Fla. — Auston Matthews scored eight minutes into his first NHL game. The ensuing nine years saw the Toronto Maple Leafs captain put more pucks in the net than any other player in the league, which is why he arrived at Amerant Bank Arena surrounded by a cacophony of what his teammates typically refer to as “noise.”

Heading into Game 6, Matthews had played 10 games in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs without scoring at all. Of the 110 players in league history with at least 400 goals on their resumes, he was the only one stuck on zero beyond Round 1.

“Big goal’s coming,” his coach, Craig Berube, predicted as questions about Matthews kept coming.

Then with his team’s season on the line, and with the Florida Panthers giving the Maple Leafs all they could handle on Friday night, Matthews finally broke through by a firing shot along the ice that skipped under Sergei Bobrovsky’s stick and through his legs.

AUSTON MATTHEWS PUTS THE LEAFS IN THE LEAD!! 😤 pic.twitter.com/PV38xKI4zd

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 17, 2025

Sweet relief.

“I mean, that felt great,” Matthews said.

“It’s such a huge, huge goal,” added teammate Max Pacioretty. “That’s a situation where no one wants to make a mistake. You could feel the tension on both sides there at that point of the game, and just an unbelievable shot from an unbelievable player. That’s why he’s our captain.”

Pacioretty understands better than most the kind of pressure Matthews has been under. Once the top scorer for a goal-starved Montreal Canadiens team that went on a few playoff runs, he’s been subjected to the intense scrutiny Matthews experienced in recent days as his goal drought stretched well beyond its usual limits.

Make no mistake: The Leafs wouldn’t have a Game 7 to play on Sunday night if it weren’t for a big-time bounce-back performance from Matthews and linemate Mitch Marner, who both managed the puck brilliantly under difficult conditions in Game 6 and connected on that opening goal in a 2-0 victory.

“Both of them played a great hockey game,” said Pacioretty, who had Toronto’s other goal. “I mean, everyone will probably want to talk about the goal and the points, but even there at the end, just so many good plays that I can replay in my mind of winning stick battles and winning puck battles to seal that win. I’ve never been as good as them, but I’ve been in their shoes a little bit where you’re kind of judged on one thing as a player.

“But they bring so much to this team as a group. It doesn’t go unnoticed and they showed it tonight.”

Matthews had put 24 shots on goal since last scoring in Toronto’s closeout game against the Ottawa Senators on May 1. He vowed to keep firing pucks and maintaining belief in his process even as the results weren’t coming.

While he’s done a lot of good things in this series — the Leafs are ahead 6-4 in his five-on-five minutes despite the majority of those being played against perennial Selke Trophy candidate Sasha Barkov — Matthews is also one year removed from a 69-goal season.

He needs to score for Toronto to play on. Bobrovsky is in top form and the Panthers have put a vice lock on this series defensively. The windows of opportunity are almost non-existent against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

A brief one opened in the third period of Friday’s game when Aaron Ekblad bobbled Gustav Forsling’s pass on a play that should have been an easy breakout for the Panthers. Marner scooped up that puck and spun off Ekblad in one motion before hitting Matthews with a pass in stride.

He made no mistake.

“I was able to jump on it quickly and, like we’ve done all year, I tried to get (the puck) to Tone with speed coming down the ice,” said Marner. “Regardless of where he’s shooting from, there’s always a chance it goes in. It’s a goal-scorer’s goal.

“We needed that, and that’s what he does.”

Matthews had to raise his level and push through a red wall with his team facing elimination. He won 56 percent of his faceoffs and the Leafs controlled 67 percent of the shot attempts with him on the ice at five-on-five.

The challenge was made even greater when Matthews took an inadvertent high-stick from Barkov in the left eye during a second-period faceoff, briefly sending him to the Leafs dressing room for further medical attention because of blurred vision.

“A little scary there,” he said. “I had some trouble seeing, so they just wanted to go check it out in the room and let it calm down. And I was kind of able to get somewhat decent vision back.”

The goal Matthews scored currently stands as the biggest of his career, although that might be a short-lived placeholder if the Leafs advance to their first Eastern Conference Final since 2002 with a win on Sunday.

The bottom line is they needed a game-breaking performance and he delivered.

“He plays 200 feet for me,” Berube said of Matthews. “Touches all areas of the game and got a big goal for us tonight, obviously. It starts with his determination. His leadership that way, and you know it rubs off on the rest of our team.”

The Panthers pushed hard to the final buzzer.

Berube kept Matthews on the ice for two minutes 54 seconds of the final 3:32 played overall. He won a defensive-zone faceoff, blocked a shot and helped ensure the Leafs pushed this series back to a winner-take-all game at Scotiabank Arena.

“Just a gutsy, gutsy win,” Matthews said.

(Photo: Joel Auerbach / Getty Images)

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