Auston Matthews comments drawing some heat from Hockey Insiders

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S. Harper
May 9, 2022 (9:58 PM)

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Every years we hear Leaf Fans chant "It's our year," to the point where the rest of us fans just laugh.

Many were counting Toronto out of the series with the Tampa Bay Lightning before it even started, until the Leafs surprised the Lightning beating them 5-0 in game one. But after being blown out by the lightning Lightning 7-3 in game 4, Hockey reporter David Alter spoke with Auston Matthews on the disappointing game 4 loss, which Matthews called ''A missed opportunity''

"I think you could kind of say that about any loss would be an opportunity missed. But it was a great opportunity. We obviously let that one slip. But at the same time it's not gonna be easy there. You know that they're gonna answer back and now it's our turn to to have our answer here." - Matthews

We are seeing the Leafs issues they've had since 2004, a team that can score and have great regular season but struggle to close out games in the playoffs. Although the series is tied 2-2, the Leafs are going to need their big guns to be their big guns including Matthews, Marner, and John Tavares. The Leafs captain has been called out for his disappointing play already in the series.

Sheldon Keefe knows this team needs to be better, saying he hasn't seen their best hockey yet.

"We need more from everyone on this team including our core players or we aren't going to achieve our goal." - Keefe

David Alter also had some comments on the series so far regarding the Maple Leafs star players:

"You can quibble about the fourth line construction, or the third pair names, but at the end of the day, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are getting their lunch fed to them by the shutdown line of Killorn-Point-Cirelli, and maybe more importantly, Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak."
-David Alter