Domi does his best impersonation of Marner with the first four-assist night of his NHL career.

The Maple Leafs defeated the Washington Capitals 7-3 on Wednesday night at Capital One Arena thanks to

goals and assists from Auston Matthews, who drew closer to 70, assists from Alex

Ovechkin, who drew closer to Wayne Gretzky, and a strong impression from

Max Domi, who played the role of Mitch Marner. This was Domi’s first four-assist

night in his career. Coach Sheldon Keefe made the latest and perhaps best

decision in finding a replacement for the injured Marner.

Sheldon Keefe, the coach of the Leafs, remarked, “Those guys were feeling it tonight.” “Max was excellent. Auston

performed like a pro. Additionally, Tyler Bertuzzi was fighting a medical

condition, but once he started playing, he was well.

Domi did not dispute.

“We definitely felt it,” he remarked. The puck was making its way toward us.

When it occurs, you must seize the opportunity. Auston is the greatest player

in the world when he gets the puck in dangerous spots like that.

Matthews now has 57 goals in the league, three more than his career best of 60. To reach 70 goals, a mark no player has

attained since 1993, he has to score 13 goals in his next 14 games.

“We still have more to do.” Concerning striving to improve our game as the season draws to a close, we have nothing

to worry about in our locker room,” Matthews stated.

“As for the individual stuff, it goes without saying that you want to succeed

and challenge yourself to be the best version of yourself. I make an effort to do

it each night. It’s beneficial to keep working hard, attempt to improve, and

do everything in my power to support the team in winning.

In addition to Bertuzzi, Bobby McMann, and Jake McCabe scoring goals, William

Nylander and John Tavares each earned two helpers as the Leafs rebounded from

a lackluster performance in Philadelphia the previous evening.

The offence made a winner of Joseph Woll for the first time since Feb. 29. He

stopped 18 of 21 shots for his 10th win of the season.

“He was good,” Keefe said. “There were some chances early in the first period where he had to be really sharp, The

guys did a pretty good job in front of him. He had a good game and I’m glad

we were able to get him back in and get him a win.”

Matthews vs. Ovechkin

Rarely does the NHL miss a chance to pull out the stops when there’s a

marquee matchup and Wednesday night’s game was no exception, with two

of the greatest goal scorers of the era going up against each other.

Ovechkin led the Washington offence with two goals, to move within 49 goals

of Gretzky’s all-time league record of 894 career goals.

“He’s a world-class player and if we can get the two points and still allow him to

add to his total, we’ll take that,” Keefe said.

After a slow start — nine goals in four months — Ovechkin has sprung to life to keep his pursuit of Gretzky’s all-time goal

record (894) in sight. The 38-year-old has 14 goals in 21 games in February and

March and has brought the Capitals into the wild-card hunt.

“Pucks are going in for him,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “He’s done a really nice job on the power play. He smells that these are the most important games of the year.

“You can tell he’s been through this a long time and this time of the year is his time to shine.”

But the league was happy to point out that Matthews leads the NHL in goals since entering the league in 2016-17 (356), while Ovechkin ranks fourth over that span.

Matthews’ goals-per-game rate is 0.65 through his first 547 games, higher than Ovechkin’s rate (0.62) over his first 547.

And Ovechkin, whose single-season career high is 65 goals, is rooting for Matthews to get to 70.

“Happy for him, hope he gets it,” Ovechkin said. “He’s a special player. It’s fun to watch.”

Matthews was happy to hear that, calling Ovechkin one of his childhood goal-scoring heroes.

“We’re all kind of running out of words to to describe him,” Matthews said. “He’s the greatest goal scorer of all time. It’s always fun to play against him, the excitement he gets when he scores goals.

“Obviously, you’d like to see him not score against us, but when you’re that good, you’re bound to get opportunities. And he makes good on them most times.”

Flipping the script

Fitting that Matthews opened the scoring. Not only did he add to his total with his 56th goal and move into a tie with five others for 155th in all-time scoring, but he did so quickly. A night after the Leafs played a dud and let Philadelphia score 19 seconds into the game, Matthews scored 16 seconds into Wednesday’s game.

And it was with new-look linemates, with Bobby McMann and Domi on his wings.

Bertuzzi, his normal left-winger, sat on the bench for the first eight minutes of the game. Keefe said he was questionable to play because of an illness. But he eventually got back on with Matthews and Domi.

The entire roster had an interesting look with Keefe scratching struggling defenceman T.J Brodie, who was minus-4 in his last two games and has seemed a shadow of his usually reliable self more often than not this season.

The analytics say Brodie is struggling. He has been on the ice for more high-danger chances against (584) than for (564), the only Leafs defenceman for which that is true.

“He hasn’t been at his best this season, for most of the season, yet he’s taken on a lot for us,” Keefe said. “We’ve been through a lot with our defence. He’s been consistently in there each night, taking on the hardest matchups every single night. This was a chance for us to give him a night off, lighten the load.”

Building a lead

Quick goals to start periods continued with Nylander scoring in the first minute in what became a back-and-forth second.

Ovechkin cut the Leafs’ lead on a power play. Matthews reinstated a two-goal lead and finished the night in a five-way tie for 155th in all-time scoring.

Connor McMichael got the Capitals within one, then Leafs fans showered the ice with hats when they thought Matthews had scored a hat trick goal. Matthews thought it, too, but the Capitals challenged for offside and it showed Bertuzzi was just a step ahead.

But a Domi shot from the point deflected off McCabe and the Leafs headed into the third period with a 4-2 lead.

Keefe, who had said he didn’t like anything about Tuesday’s loss in Philadelphia, loved a lot about Wednesday’s win.

“I liked it,” he said. “Obviously a bit of a flip of a script in terms of our starts in the first and the second periods. It was good to see. And then probably even better than that, each time Washington got one and looked like they were getting life, we stayed on the attack and built our lead from there. So I liked the response overall in the game, but also liked the response within the game as it was going on.”

With 16, Matthews set a new Leafs mark for the most multi-goal games in a single season. In 1983–84, Rick Vaive set the record of 15, and in 2021–22, Matthews matched it.

Since four players had as many multi-goal games in 1992–1993, Matthews is the first NHL player with at least 16 in a season.

On February 17, Matthews scored five points, matching his career high for a single game (three goals and two assists). He became the first player since Vaive, who had two in 1981–82, to have multiple five-point games in a season. He is now the sixth player in team history to do it.