The Toronto Maple Leafs booked their ticket to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the fifth straight year following a 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday.
Posted Apr 29, 2021, 05:13AM EDT
The Toronto Maple Leafs booked their ticket to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the fifth straight year following a 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday.
Heading into the game, Toronto needed a regulation win to clinch a playoff spot after the Ottawa Senators earned a regulation victory over the Vancouver Canucks earlier in the day.
Goals from William Nylander, Auston Matthews, Jake Muzzin and Adam Brooks lifted Toronto over Montreal, who got a lone tally from Nick Suzuki. Matthews’ goal gave him 35 on the season, leaving him atop all NHL goal-scorers in 2020-21.
Leafs winger Joe Thornton, who set the record as the oldest player in franchise history to score when he found the back of the net Saturday, helped set up Muzzin’s goal to become just the seventh player in league history to register 1,100 career assists.
Thornton joined Wayne Gretzky (1,963), Ron Francis (1,249), Mark Messier (1,193), Ray Bourque (1,169), Jaromir Jagr (1,155) and Paul Coffey (1,135) as the only players in NHL history to crack 1,100 assists.
With the win, the Maple Leafs remain atop the North Division with 67 points. They will now try to wrap up their first division title in 21 years.
Toronto have earned a post-season berth in each year since 2016-17, Matthews’ debut season, but have yet to make it out of the first round.
The Leafs and fourth-place Canadiens – set to go head-to-head three more times before the end of the regular season – look poised to meet in the playoffs for the first time since 1979.
Toronto will now turn its immediate attention towards a two-game series at home beginning Thursday against the Vancouver Canucks, while Montreal, which remains six points up on the Calgary Flames for the North’s final post-season berth, hosts the Winnipeg Jets on Friday before the Ottawa Senators come to town Saturday.
Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report
