'Extremely confident' Knies sparks Leafs bounce-back win

The Leafs defeated the Lightning 4-3 in overtime on Wednesday at Amalie Arena in Tampa. The team is off on Thursday.

With the Leafs and Lightning locked in a tense overtime game, Matthew Knies pulled off a between-the-legs pass.

“I was just hopping on the ice, and I was having trouble believing what I was seeing in front of me,” said Auston Matthews.

“I'm not sure I'd recommend that play,” said coach Craig Berube with a big smile.

What was Toronto’s youngest player thinking?

"Honestly, I’m not too sure,” the 22-year-old said. “Just thought I’d try it. I saw that [Lightning centre Brayden Point] flipped his hips and the play was open. Not sure what I was thinking, but went to him and we had a good opportunity from it.”

Knies successfully got the puck to Morgan Rielly, who was denied by Andrei Vasilevskiy. But the Leafs defenceman collected the rebound and fed Matthews, who made a nice play around Point to set up Knies for a tap-in goal.

Knies, who had criticized his team’s effort as “a little bit soft” the previous night in Florida, completed a hat trick to help the Leafs extend their lead atop the division to three points on the Lightning with only four games left in the regular season.

“It feels incredible,” Knies said. “Just getting this win against a rival team, it’s a good feeling in that locker room. We had a great effort all around.”

Nick Robertson passed the team’s player-of-the-game belt to Knies inside a jubilant dressing room.

“It’s gotta go to Kniesy,” Robertson said with a smile. “This guy’s a dog!”

Knies is experiencing a sophomore surge this season with 29 goals and 55 points. Every game, the 6-foot-3, 227 pounder seems to be getting more dominant.

“Didn't he try to do the Michigan the other night? I mean, he's got confidence right now,” said Berube. “He's playing with a lot of confidence, which is good. The reason for his success is his competitiveness, in my opinion. It's really, really high end. Like, he wins battles. He skates through people all night, gets in there on the forecheck, wins battles down low, hangs onto the pucks. I mean, he's a highly competitive player.”

Knies showed that competitiveness on his second goal. He won a battle with Lightning defenceman Victor Hedman in front of the net on the power play to recover a rebound off a Mitch Marner point shot before slipping the puck past Vasilevskiy.

“He’s done a good job around the net with his hands, going East-West quickly, and tucking it around goalies,” Marner said.

Later in the third period, Knies got into it with Lightning defenceman Erik Cernak and then continued engaging with him  from the penalty box after they both received roughing minors.

“Probably not things we can say on camera but, yeah, he was in my face and that’s how it always it is,” Knies said.

The University of Minnesota product, a second-round pick in 2021, is not backing down from anyone these days.

“I think he's just a confident person in general,” said linemate and fellow Arizona native Matthews. “He's got a pretty good idea of who he is and what makes him successful, and I think he really leans into that, which is really great …His ceiling is extremely high, and he's been taking some really big steps this year.”

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Toronto’s top line immediately set the tone on Wednesday night. Marner scored just 73 seconds into the game off a pass from Matthews.

Knies scored his first goal by putting home the rebound off a Matthews shot a couple minutes later.

"We brought a lot of energy the first five minutes,” said Knies. “I think we created a lot of energy for our guys and we did a great job of shutting down their best players. It’s the kind of effort we’ll need on a daily basis. And especially when it comes playoff time, we’ll need to step up and provide in those big moments.”

Wednesday was a big moment, especially after Toronto’s top players struggled to make an impact against the Panthers. Matthews mustered just one shot while Marner didn’t have any in Sunrise, Fla. 

In Tampa, the top line made sure it was a different story.

“That line was really good,” said Berube. “I thought they started the game with just working, battling, competing. Got us a couple goals early. I think the line was very good all around.”

The early goals came off turnovers by Lightning leaders Brandon Hagel and Nikita Kucherov. Tampa Bay’s shutdown duo of Ryan McDonagh and Cernak was on the ice for both goals as well.

“Embarrassing,” fumed coach Jon Cooper. “Embarrassing first three and a half minutes. That was it.”

Cooper eventually highlighted a mitigating factor in that his team had just returned from a long road trip and the first game back can be tricky.

The Lightning were also missing 38-goal winger Jake Guentzel, who was a late scratch for personal reasons.

But the Leafs were also playing on consecutive nights and missing shutdown defenceman Jake McCabe due to injury.

“I just hated the way we came out,” Cooper said. “Now, in saying that, for 57 minutes we leaned on them and they’re a first-place team, one of the best teams in the league, and as that game kept going we did a lot of good things.”

Still, the Leafs got it done in the end to complete a season sweep of all four games against the Lightning. The first three wins all came in regulation.

“If they win the division, they deserve to beat us because they swept us this year,” Cooper said. “In the end, that’s what it’s going to come down to.”

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Marner finished the night with three points, which brought him within three points of his first career 100-point season. He’s come close in the past finishing with 99 points two years ago and 97 points three years ago.

“I feel like you guys asked me this last year or something,” he said of the milestone. “I really don’t care in a way. We just want to win games and try to get to first in our division. If it happens it happens, that’s great, but just trying to go out there and win hockey games and do what we do out there.”

With four games left, it feels like this will finally be the year in which Marner cracks the century mark. He would be the fourth ever player in franchise history to do it joining Doug Gilmour (1992-93, 1993-94), Darryl Sittler (1975-76, 1977-78) and Matthews (2021-22, 2023-24).

“It would be awesome to be a part of it,” said Knies. “I’ll try my best to get him there. But he’s handled himself like a professional. On and off the ice, he’s been a great teammate and someone that the guys love to be around. So it would be a huge milestone for him and I think everybody would be really happy for it.”

Marner is delivering a career-best season while playing in the final year of his contract. He was the centre of attention at the trade deadline, because the team approached him about the possibility of waiving his no-move clause.

“It's not easy going through all the chaos that can be kind of around him and in the season and everything,” said Matthews. “But I think he's handled everything amazing. I mean, his focus is on hockey. It's on the team. He's a guy that goes out there and does a great effort every night, so he's a special player. He's just going to continue to elevate his game here as we go along this final stretch.”

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Anthony Stolarz made 25 saves to earn his first career win in Tampa.

“He was excellent,” said Berube. “He had to be.”

The biggest stop came on a Point breakaway early in overtime.

“He was coming down with a lot of speed,” Stolarz said. “He’s a righty and he likes to, or guys tend to like to, go over that pad, under the glove, so kind of just threw everything out there and luckily it hit the pad.”

“Unbelievable,” Marner raved. “First shot in overtime is a breakaway against really one of the best goal scorers in our league so, yeah, it was a massive save to keep that game going.”

Stolarz was quick to praise teammates for blocking 33 shots in the game, which established a new single game record for the Leafs.

“You can see the intensity, you can see the dedication in the defensive zone as well as in the offensive zone,” Stolarz said.

Rielly led the way with seven blocks followed by Chris Tanev and Scott Laughton at five. Overall, 11 different Leafs blocked at least one shot.

“Kudos to those guys in front of me,” Stolarz said. “They made my job a lot easier. It's just a collective effort, and that's something that we're going to have to continue to build on going forward here.”

“They bent,” said Cooper. “They didn’t break.”

But the Lightning bench boss also blamed his team for not making more out of their 90 shot attempts, which was one off of the season high for Tampa Bay.

“That’s a lot on us," Cooper said. "We missed the net 26 times. That’s a lot. We have [33] blocked.  I know they block shots, but they don’t block 36 of them. I think we were probably a little guilty of not executing on some of the things we could have. In that sense, if we’re going to keep playing the way we did after the slow start, I’ll take our chances. Two good teams going at it and that’s what you’re going to see.”

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The Lightning tied the game after Leafs winger Bobby McMann was penalized for cross-checking Point prior to a third-period fight.

"I really didn't see it, to be honest with you,” Berube said. “I really didn't get a good look at it, but penalties are penalties. I'm not going to sit here and complain about ‘em. I felt like we could have got some more calls, too, but it didn't happen.”

The Leafs only had two power plays, courtesy a high-sticking double minor by Emil Lilleberg in the third period while the Lightning had four man-advantage opportunities, including three in the third period.

On the game-tying goal by Hedman, Marner made a diving attempt to clear the puck, but missed, which allowed the Lightning defenceman to walk in and beat a screened Stolarz.

“We just gotta kill them off,” Marner said when asked about the third-period calls against the Leafs, which included a tripping whistle on Max Domi. “We did a good job on the first one. I gotta stay on my feet I think on that third one. But it’s a little frustrating in a way.”

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Leafs lines in Wednesday’s game:

Knies - Matthews - Marner
Jarnkrok - Tavares - Nylander
McMann - Domi - Robertson  
Holmberg - Laughton - Lorentz

Ekman-Larsson - Tanev
Rielly - Carlo
Benoit - Myers

Stolarz
Woll