Matthews scores twice for Maple Leafs in win against Golden Knights

TORONTO --Auston Matthews scored twice to help the Toronto Maple Leafs defeat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-0 at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday.

"Just a really complete effort from the start to finish," Matthews said. "Just really good energy, and I don't think we gave them too much around our net with opportunities. [Jack Campbell] played unbelievable, and so I think that's an ideal display of hockey that we'd like to play, being as consistent as we were tonight."
It was the first multigoal game of the season for Matthews, who won the Rocket Richard Trophy last season when he led the NHL with 41 goals in 52 games. He has 40 multigoal games in his six NHL seasons.
Mitchell Marner had a goal and two assists, William Nylander had a goal and an assist, and Campbell made 26 saves for his first shutout of the season for the Maple Leafs (5-4-1), who have won three in a row.
"That was awesome. It was great to be a part of and great to see everybody playing their game, getting rewarded and getting a big two points," Campbell said. "I just thought our start and the way we played for the whole 60 minutes, that always gives you a lot of confidence when we start that way and get on the scoreboard early."
Robin Lehner made 29 saves for the Golden Knights (4-5-0), who had a three-game winning streak end.
"That wasn't close to good enough," Lehner said. "Probably the worst one we've had since I came to Vegas. We didn't have much, they had way too much. They're a very skilled team over there but we are not going to make excuses for having a lot of guys out. All teams go through it but we can't get outworked like we did today. We had a pretty good game plan, we'd won three in a row, but for some reason we just weren't where we needed to be."
The Golden Knights were playing without forwards Max Pacioretty (fractured foot), Alex Tuch (shoulder), Mark Stone (lower body), Nolan Patrick (undisclosed), William Karlsson (fractured foot) and defenseman Zach Whitecloud (upper body).
Marner gave Toronto took a 1-0 lead at 11:31 of the first period when he spun at the top of the goal to avoid Golden Knights center Jake Leschyshyn and put a backhand past Lehner's right pad.
"I saw their guy from my right so I was just trying to pull it away from him and then try to pull it away from Lehner, and then from that point on I was able to turn around quickly and realized I didn't have to try to raise it, that I had enough net to slide it in," Marner said. "It's a pretty good feeling when that happens."

Matthews made it 2-0 on the power play at 2:59 of the second period when he took a pass from Nylander and shot over Lehner's blocker.
"It really feels good when you see it go in the back of the net," Matthews said. "I thought our power play, in the one opportunity we got, really snapped it around well, hunted the puck and got pucks back and kept creating chances."
Matthews extended the lead to 3-0 at 19:15 when he jammed in a rebound from Morgan Rielly's shot.
"We weren't very good," Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb said. "They played better than us, obviously, and we didn't generate very much, especially at the start. Then we got down and couldn't generate much either. It was a pretty frustrating game."
Nylander made it 4-0 at 2:43 of the third period, taking a cross-ice pass in the neutral zone from Michael Bunting and shooting past Lehner's blocker from the slot.
"I thought right from the start we took control of the game and maintained that all the way through," Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. "We were good on special teams and our goaltending was good too, that was certainly more indicative of what we are capable of."
NOTES: Maple Leafs defenseman TJ Brodie had an assist in his 700th NHL game. … Maple Leafs forward Pierre Engvall played his 100th NHL game. … Toronto forward John Tavares had an assist and has scored five points (two goals, three assists) in a three-game point streak. … Campbell has five shutouts in the NHL. … Maple Leafs defenseman Justin Holl was a healthy scratch for the second-straight game. … Golden Knights forward Mattias Janmark returned to the lineup after missing the past two games with an upper-body injury. He had two shots and was minus-1 in 12:27... Vegas was 0-for-3 on the power play and has not scored on 18 opportunities this season.