Matthews gets four points for Maple Leafs in win against Panthers

TORONTO-- Auston Matthews had two goals and two assists for the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 6-1 win against the Florida Panthers at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday.

"I think the first four or five minutes we weren't very good," Matthews said. "They kind of had the puck in our zone, and then after that I thought we took over. The very start, we could have been better, but all in all I thought we played a really good game. We were above their good guys all night, didn't give them too much space, and kind of took them out of the game as well as we could."
Morgan Rielly had four assists for the Maple Leafs (23-10-2), who have won two in a row after losing four of five.
WATCH: [All Panthers vs. Maple leafs highlights\]
"Today we just did things right and executed, and as soon as we got one we were going to get more," Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. "I thought our team worked hard tonight, we started on time and did things the way you should, so that was good."

Henrik Borgstrom scored and Roberto Luongo made 17 saves for the Panthers (13-14-6) before being replaced by James Reimer after the Maple Leafs' fifth goal. Reimer made three saves.
"We're here to get two points, and that should be enough motivation," Florida captain Aleksander Barkov said. "We came here and tried to play as well as possible, but we gave them chances and momentum and they took over. We need to learn to play against those teams."
Matthews put the Maple Leafs up 1-0 at 18:17 of the first period when he one-timed a cross-seam pass from Mitchell Marner on the power play. Toronto had scored once on its previous 25 power plays; it went 3-for-3.
"That was big for us. We haven't been good enough lately (on the power play)," Matthews said. "Even against these guys last Saturday in Florida (a 4-3 overtime loss), we were terrible (0-for-4), so it's good to get back on track tonight and score a few power-play goals. We want to continue this success moving forward the last couple days before the break."
The Maple Leafs went up 2-0 at 3:50 of the second period when Matthews one-timed a pass from Rielly at the right face-off dot.
Nazem Kadri had a goal disallowed at 7:38 when it was ruled he kicked the puck in the net, but he scored at 11:14 on a 2-on-1 with Connor Brown to make it 3-0.
John Tavares scored at 2:38 of the third period on the power play to make it 4-0 and at 5:41 to push the lead to 5-0.

Borgstrom made it 5-1 at 10:28 of the third period on the power play. Marner scored on the power play at 15:14 to make it 6-1.
"After about the first 10 minutes, it was just a good hockey team playing a team that didn't look very good tonight," Panthers coach Bob Boughner said. "We had too many passengers, tried to overcomplicate the game, and what we did last week against Toronto was we had 20 guys working hard and together. Tonight we were just fragmented; we didn't have the right mindset."

They said it

"It wasn't our best night even though we scored one on the power play. Our unit didn't do a good enough job to put pucks to the net or get set up in the zone. Penalty kill, we didn't win face-offs or didn't block shots, we were not there today." -- Panthers center Aleksander Barkov
"Sometimes he makes it look easy, a lot of the times he makes it look easy, and this league definitely is not easy. To do it at this level that consistently, it's a testament to his skill set and his attention to detail and how hard that is to do day in and day out over the course of a season. No question he has one of the best shots in the game. We're very fortunate to have him on our side." -- John Tavares on Auston Matthews scoring 19 goals in his first 21 games

Need to know

Maple Leafs forward Zach Hyman was scratched with an ankle injury and will be out at least three weeks. ... Maple Leafs defenseman Igor Ozhiganov was scratched after the warmup because of illness and was replaced by Martin Marincin, who had an assist playing 19:04. ... Matthews became the 59th player in the NHL modern era (since 1943-44) to score at least 19 goals in his first 21 games of a season. The only other Maple Leafs player to do so was Wendel Clark, who scored 19 goals in his first 21 games in 1993-94. ... Rielly matched his NHL career-high with four assists and became the first NHL defenseman to score 40 points this season (11 goals, 29 assists).

What's next

Panthers: At the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday (2 p.m. ET; FS-D, FS-F, NHL.TV)
Maple Leafs: Host the New York Rangers on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, CBC, SN, SN1, MSG, NHL.TV)