TORONTO – Sidney Crosby didn’t concern himself with whether the Toronto Maple Leafs were throwing Auston Matthews or John Tavares over the boards against him. The Pittsburgh Penguins captain brought the same strategy to each of his shifts on Thursday night.
“We just wanted to hold on to the puck a little bit more,” said Crosby. “It’s a lot more fun playing that way and I think you can wear teams down playing that way, too. That plays to our strengths. I think our focus was just holding on to the puck and defending by playing in the offensive zone.”
He didn’t even have to register a primary point to do damage against the Leafs.
Matthews was plugged in his own zone while sharing the ice with No. 87, prompting Leafs coach Mike Babcock to adjust out of that matchup partway through a night where Pittsburgh enjoyed an 8-4 edge in shot attempts during the seven-plus minutes they battled 5-on-5.
That was a key man to neutralize. Matthews opened the year with at least two points in each of Toronto’s seven games and didn’t sniff a “Grade A” chance in the eighth – a 3-0 loss to Pittsburgh that was dull, by the Penguins design.
“If we play smart and we play right, we’ll beat any team in the league,” said Pittsburgh centre Evgeni Malkin. “We have a great experienced team, we know how to play tough games, we know how to play against skill teams. We showed tonight. We stopped Matthews. Finally he did not score, you know?
“We deserved to win.”
The differences were subtle, but important.
Crosby also did well in his 3:36 against Tavares, with Pittsburgh enjoying a 7-1 edge in attempts, but that was an aberration. Toronto’s big free-agent splash had two or three dangerous looks against Penguins goalie Matt Murray and seemed to have some traction with linemates Mitch Marner and Zach Hyman.
They just couldn’t quite break through.
Malkin struck on one of Pittsburgh’s two power plays, surprising Frederik Andersen with a low-angle shot after Crosby won an offensive zone faceoff back to Kris Letang in the first period. Toronto only received one abbreviated opportunity with the man advantage and was unlucky not to get at least one more, with a Jake Guentzel high-stick that dangerously cut Hyman for eight stitches around the right eye going undetected.
Otherwise, two teams brimming with elite talent ground each other to a halt. There were virtually no odd-man rushes or big gaps to make skilled plays, and the Penguins seemed a little more comfortable playing in the trenches.
“I think it’s the best game of the season so far for us,” said Malkin. “We played three periods against Matthews, Tavares; like we did a great job in the D-zone, too. We understand they’re skilled guys. We played physical, we played smart.”
Added Crosby: “They’ve got a lot of offensive weapons there. I thought we did a great job of limiting their chances – I mean they’re going to get them, they’re a pretty highly skilled group – but we didn’t give them any freebies. We made them work for them.”
Pittsburgh showed the Leafs respect at Scotiabank Arena. They’ve been no defensive marvel over the first two weeks of the season but buckled down with Murray returning from a three-game concussion absence against the NHL’s highest-scoring team.
They are a group of scoring champions – Malkin and Crosby have each won the Art Ross Trophy twice – but they are three-time Stanley Cup champions because of their ability to bottle things up when necessary.
“It seems like they were just calm, cool, collected out there,” said Matthews. “They didn’t run around, they just played smart and didn’t force anything and made plays. It seemed like they had us running around quite a bit.”
As cliché as it sounds, experience won out over exuberance.
Crosby may have made the turn to the back nine of his playing career, but he’s not ceding anything to the young guns rocketing towards the upper echelon of the sport. He got the better of Matthews on a Thursday night in October while Murray made one fewer mistake than Andersen.
“I think all victories you’ve got to earn. It was right there for us to find another step and get better and find a way to get on the inside a little more and they did a good job,” said Babcock. “They kept us from doing that. There’s a lesson learned in that. They’re a more veteran, polished, playoff team than we are.
“It showed.”
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