Maple Leafs enter all-star break feeling satisfied after slump-busting night

A few Toronto Maple Leafs have to be feeling a bit lighter now than when the sun came up on Saturday morning. And with a home-and-home sweep of the Winnipeg Jets, surely the entire Leafs squad is as satisfied as they’ve been in a while.

Toronto beat the Jets for the second straight game on Saturday night in Winnipeg, besting the home squad 4-2 after beating them 1-0 on Wednesday night in Ontario.

Three players — John Tavares, Ryan Reaves and Simon Benoit — scored thank-God goals, while Auston Matthews stayed in God mode by netting his league-leading 40th of the season.

Beating a team that’s been near the top of the standings for much of the season in back-to-back outings is a nice development for Toronto, which hasn’t really shown well against strong competition for a while. Between a Dec. 12 waxing of the New York Rangers and the win versus Winnipeg on Wednesday, the Leafs defeated exactly one team that currently holds a playoff spot — and that was a Los Angeles Kings squad that’s been cratering for six weeks.

So even if the two victories — and especially the first — against Winnipeg weren’t exactly masterpieces, full marks to the Buds for collecting the four points. Toronto certainly got better as the night wore on in Manitoba, fighting back after the Jets opened the scoring less than five minutes into the contest and wresting control of the game in the second and third frames.

This was Toronto’s final outing before its extended all-star break. So as the team slides into an eight-day hiatus, here are three takeaways from this big win.

This was a 1-1 game early in the third period when a Toronto power play that had just one goal in its past 13 opportunities got a chance to go to work. It would have been a relief for anybody in Blue and White to break through, but the fact it was Tavares tipping home a Morgan Rielly shot meant there was an extra long exhale.

The Leafs captain hadn’t found the back of the net in 10 games, registering just a single assist in that span. No wonder, then, that Tavares lifted both hands in the air and looked skyward after staking his team to a lead it did not relinquish.

“Always feels good,” Tavares told Sportsnet’s Kyle Bukauskas after the game with the Hockey Night in Canada towel draped over his shoulder. “I think anyone who plays the game, scores goals — especially [if you’re ] known as a goal-scorer — it’s always a good feeling and you know how difficult they are [to score] in this league. So nice to come up with an important one and obviously, something to build on.”

No. 91 wasn’t the only guy shaking a monkey from his back on this occasion. Ryan Reaves was playing his first game since mid-December, drawing back into the lineup because Calle Jarnkrok broke a knuckle in practice on Friday. Playing in his hometown, the big man scored a huge goal to get the Leafs on equal footing with just 49 seconds remaining in a first period where Toronto largely looked like the second-best team. After a bit of blunder by Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck led to Noah Gregor picking up the puck just inside the Winnipeg blue line, Reaves parked himself in front of Hellebuyck’s crease. When Gregor directed the puck on goal, Reaves made a deft backhand tip for the second goal of his Maple Leafs tenure.

Defenceman Simon Benoit, meanwhile, netted the very first tally of his Toronto time, rifling a puck the length of the ice in the dying minutes for an ENG he’ll take all day long.

Heck, a fourth Leaf could also have unburdened himself with a tally had a coach’s challenge broke Toronto’s way. Just seconds after Reaves had evened things up, it appeared Tyler Bertuzzi — back in the lineup after the birth of his son earlier this week and in search of his first goal in 14 outings — had given Toronto a 2-1 lead by chipping a puck past Hellebuyck. However, the play was immediately waived off for goalie interference. When Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe challenged the call — presumably on the grounds that Toronto’s William Nylander was pretty clearly pushed into Hellebuyck by Winnipeg’s Dylan DeMelo — it seemed like Bertuzzi might get his cookie after all.

However, the first-year Leaf is still in search of his seventh goal of the year after the league upheld the call on the ice.

Starting a third straight game for the Leafs in goal, Ilya Samsonov did not look great on Dylan Samberg’s ice-breaker. Granted, there was some traffic in front of the netminder, but when the floater from the top of the circle went in, it was easy to wonder if all the fantastic work Samsonov had done in winning his previous two starts might dissipate fast.

Not so.

The Russian was excellent the rest of the way, especially in the second period when he denied Jets sniper Kyle Connor on a couple Grade A chances. In all, he made 20 saves.

Samsonov, who spent time in the AHL earlier this month and has been open about his mental health battle this year, continues to look more and more like the player who provided the Leafs with a sturdy .919 save percentage last year.

Toronto was clinging to a one-goal lead late in the third when the same power play unit that had previously been struggling stuck again, this time on a five-on-three advantage. The triggerman was No. 34, who became a 40-goal scorer for the sixth time in his career and the fastest Leaf player to 600 points in franchise history (527 games) on the same play, clobbering home a one-timer from the slot in almost unfair fashion.

Matthews, of course, will be front and centre during the all-star festivities next week in Toronto. As for his teammates who won’t, they can take a beat and enjoy the fact the Leafs are hitting the break on a high after a hectic January slate.

“I think the type of month that we’ve had, physically, you started to feel it this week,” Tavares said. “I think we saw that at home the other night, we were really flat to come out [against the Jets]. [We were] just kind of grinding throughout this week with the way we’re feeling and trying to battle hard to earn the points we needed.”

Mission accomplished.