For a team that desperately needed something to go right, Thursday night finally delivered a little bit of relief. The Toronto Maple Leafs snapped an eight-game skid with a chaotic 6–4 win over the Anaheim Ducks at Scotiabank Arena, and for once the so-called hockey gods tilted things their way.
It wasn’t pretty early. The Maple Leafs fell behind 3–1 and looked like a team carrying the weight of that losing streak. But then the game flipped. Special teams took over, emotions boiled over, and suddenly, Toronto started scoring in bunches. The team rattled off four straight special-teams goals — three on the power play and one shorthanded — to turn the game around. By the time the dust settled, the building finally had something it hadn’t heard much of lately: a happy crowd.
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The comeback was fueled by Matthew Knies, who had a monster four-point night, while William Nylander and John Tavares delivered big goals. Joseph Woll stopped 36 shots behind them. It wasn’t perfect hockey, but after the stretch Toronto has been through, perfection wasn’t required. They just needed a win.
Item One: Matthew Knies Is Turning Into a Force
If there was a player who grabbed the spotlight in this one, it was Knies, who finished the night with a goal and three assists and looked like the most dangerous player on the ice for long stretches. He drove the puck into dangerous areas, helped set up the power play, and played with the kind of physical edge that can tilt a game.
It was his second four-point night in the NHL and a reminder of just how high his ceiling might be. And all this from a young fellow, whose name has been bandied around as a trade chip for the team. There were rumours that he could have been on the move. If that had happened, the Maple Leafs fan base would have been heartbroken.
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What stands out about Knies lately isn’t just the offence. It’s the confidence. He’s playing like someone who knows he belongs in big moments. For a Maple Leafs team that’s been searching for secondary push during this slump, that’s a pretty encouraging sign.
Item Two: When Your Captain Goes Down, the Room Tells the Truth
If there was one thing that stood out Thursday night beyond the scoreboard, it was this: the Maple Leafs care about Auston Matthews. When Matthews went down after Radko Gudas’ knee-on-knee hit late in the second period, the temperature of the game changed. The building went quiet for a moment, but on the ice, the Maple Leafs slowly started to play with a little more edge.
The energy shifted almost immediately. Hits started landing with a little more force. Scrums around the crease got a little more crowded. The game suddenly had a bite to it that simply hadn’t been there earlier. For a while now, the Maple Leafs have looked more than a bit flat during this losing streak. They were not exactly uninterested, but they weren’t exactly brimming with emotion either. When Matthews left the game, though, something woke up.
You can argue the response should have come faster. Head coach Craig Berube certainly did after the game when he said he would have liked to see four Maple Leafs jump in immediately after the hit. Fair call, I guess. But I also get it that the group was stunned by the enormity of what had just happened and needed time to get their bearings.
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But, after it had sunk in by the time the third period rolled around, the team finally got it, and they pushed back hard. They scored goals and took the game over. Finally, after weeks of what felt like listless acceptance of their season’s fate, there was something to play for again. And when a team rallies like that after its captain gets hurt, it usually tells you something important about the room. I could be wrong, but I expect this team to wake up.
Item Three: A Little I’ll Show You from Benoit-Olivier Groulx
Just to make the night a little stranger, the Maple Leafs also got a shorthanded goal — and it came from a player who probably enjoyed it a little more than most. Benoit-Olivier Groulx jumped on a flip pass from Brandon Carlo, skated into the left circle, and snapped a low glove shot past Lukas Dostal to give Toronto a 5–3 lead. It turned out to be the game-winner, and it was Groulx’s first NHL goal since 2021.
Given the talent I’ve seen from him, I’m surprised it’s only the second of his NHL career. When a depth player breaks through in a moment like that, the bench usually explodes, and the team looked genuinely thrilled for him.
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There was a little extra flavour to the goal, too. Groulx was originally a second-round pick of the Ducks back in 2018, but he never really found a foothold in Anaheim. In 65 games with the organization, he managed just five NHL points before eventually moving on. So scoring the game-winning goal against his former team probably felt pretty good.
What makes it interesting is that Groulx has been producing offensively in the American Hockey League this season, piling up 50 points in 54 games with the Marlies. The Leafs didn’t call him up to carry the offence, of course, but Thursday’s goal was a reminder that sometimes a player who’s been grinding in the minors still has a little scoring touch waiting for the right moment.
We saw something similar with Alex Steeves last season, who’s now playing in Boston after the Maple Leafs moved on from him. And in this case, it arrived shorthanded at exactly the right time. I expect Groulx to have earned a full shot on this team next season.
What’s Next for the Maple Leafs?
The win doesn’t erase everything that’s been happening around the Maple Leafs lately, but it does stop the bleeding. Eight games without a win can start to mess with a team’s confidence, and this comeback at least gives them something positive to grab onto.
The bigger storyline now is Matthews’ health. If the Maple Leafs’ captain misses time, that changes the conversation quickly. Toronto has been struggling to score consistently, even with him in the lineup, so losing him would be a major test for the rest of the roster.
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Still, Thursday showed something important. Even during a rough stretch, this group can still flip a game quickly when its skilled players get rolling. If the Maple Leafs can build on the emotion and urgency they showed in the third period, this could end up being the night that stopped the slide.
