Given an opportunity for Max Domi to take it himself, he’ll usually choose to dish.
It should have come as little surprise, then, that when this proud son of a fighter was asked about his four-assist star turn following Wednesday’s 7-3 rout of the Washington Capitals, Domi immediately and gracefully sauced attention elsewhere.
To Stanley Cup champion and fierce enforcer Chris Simon, who took his own life Tuesday at age 52.
Simon’s family has blamed CTE. And Chris was that rare player who could score 29 goals (for these Capitals, in 1999-2000) and go toe-to-toe with Max’s dad, Tie.
“Big shoutout to the Simon family and just letting them all know that we’re thinking of them through this difficult time,” Max told Sportsnet’s Shawn McKenzie in his walk-off interview. “Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”
Just as we appreciate Domi’s big-picture response to a routine game-over question, his coach appreciated the response he got from his new-look first line following Tuesday’s debacle in Philadelphia.
The Toronto Maple Leafs‘ top trio of Domi, Auston Matthews, and Tyler Bertuzzi — an experiment born of Mitch Marner’s injury and the club’s search for forward balance — was so dominant in victory, they turned Alex Ovechkin‘s creep toward the all-time goal-scoring record into but a footnote.
“Those guys were feeling it tonight,” Sheldon Keefe raved. “Just made plays.
“Max was outstanding. I thought Auston put on a clinic through most of the game here tonight. And Bert was battling through something here today with illness, and even he, once he got going, was good.”
The questionable Bertuzzi was so sick, he struggled during warmup and didn’t hop over the boards until the first period was nearly half over. He only decided to dress because the Leafs had already instructed defenceman T.J. Brodie to take the day off, and there were no other bodies on the road trip.
That meant Bobby McMann filling in on the left flank for the first Matthews-Domi shift, which resulted in magic just 16 seconds from puck drop.
The fastest goal of Matthews’ career and the Maple Leafs’ season:
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It was all downhill from there, with Matthews tying his career high with five points and Domi enjoying his most productive night as a Leaf: four assists, three of them primary. And zero shots on net.
“Such a smart player out there. He makes the game easy. He can make plays. He moves into space really well and just communicates a lot out there. So, makes it easy on myself and Bert to move into space and try to find each other,” Matthews told reporters.
“I really liked the chemistry tonight.”
Domi, naturally, volleyed the love right back Matthews’ way.
“He’s probably the best player in the world right now, as far as I’m concerned,” said Domi, who regularly sits next to good friend Matthews at the back of the team charter.
“I’m just having fun getting the puck to him as much as I can.”
As dominant as the Bertuzzi-Matthews-Domi line was, it actually missed out on an eighth Toronto goal — and what should’ve been another Matthews hat trick — because a skate-dragging Bertuzzi was a few inches offside on a Domi zone entry that would later lead to another excellent scoring sequence.
“Frustrating to get it called back,” said Matthews, on track for a third Rocket Richard Trophy.
With a pair of goals, Matthews is up to 57 on the campaign and now on pace for 69.
Ovechkin — whose own pair of goals brings him within 49 of snapping Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record — is rooting for Matthews to eclipse his 65 goals in one season, most among all active players.
“I’m cheering for him. He’s a fun player to watch, and fans are going to love it when it’s going to be 70,” Ovechkin said.
It “means a lot” to Matthews that he has a supporter for his race to 70 in Ovechkin, whom the sniper grew up admiring as a hockey-mad youngster in Arizona.
“We got more stuff to worry about in our locker room as far as trying to build our game toward the end of the season. The individual stuff — you want to accomplish stuff. You want to push yourself to be as great as you can,” Matthews said. “And that’s what I try to do every night.”
Doing so will be much easier with a disher like Domi (up to 31 assists, with just eight goals) on his wing, especially with Marner’s return date unknown.
“He’s an elite passer. He can put it under sticks, over sticks, and he has the vision. Puts it right on the tape,” McMann said.
“It’s always nice to be on the ice with him, that’s for sure.”
Fox’s Fast Five
• For the first time since 2013, Brodie was a healthy scratch.
The pending free agent was a minus-4 over Toronto’s two losses heading into D.C. and minus-8 over his past 12 games.
Instead, Keefe tapped righty Conor Timmins for his first action since Jan. 24.
The coach cushioned Brodie’s embarrassment by framing his scratch around load management.
“It’s an opportunity for us to give him a little bit of time off, lighten the workload a bit here,” said Keefe of his second-most-used skater.
“Brods knows he hasn’t been at his best this season here, for most of the season, yet he’s taken on a lot for us. We’ve been through a lot with our defence, in particular, throughout the season, and he’s been consistently there each night taking on most of the hardest matchups every single night — and it’s been a lot.”
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• Domi is such an excellent passer, why not promote him to the top power-play unit while Marner (high-ankle sprain) is out?
Having two strong net-front guys, John Tavares and Tyler Bertuzzi, on PP1 feels redundant.
Swap one out for Domi.
• Toronto’s offensive explosion will get the headlines, but the team’s defensive commitment improved in the second half of the back-to-back.
Philadelphia out-shot-blocked Toronto 36-9 Tuesday.
Toronto out-blocked Washington 20-18 Wednesday.
• Ryan Reaves was an unhealthy scratch.
The fourth-liner’s eye got poked during Tuesday’s scrap with Nicolas Deslauriers in Philadelphia and is still irritated.
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• Despite being a deadline seller and a franchise in retool mode, the Capitals’ surprising 10-5-1 run has them in the mix for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference’s turtle derby of a wild-card race.
Amazing that the Capitals’ still have a legitimate shot at the post-season when they’re operating with a minus-31 goal differential, which ranks them 27th league-wide.
“Every game is like the biggest game for us,” Ovechkin said. “You can see what happens now in the standings. Sometimes some team win, sometimes team lose, and we just have to push ourselves. It doesn’t matter how different teams are going to play, we just have to get points in all games.”
