McKenna Got His First. Matthews Got the Last Word.
GOATIFYToronto spent most of Tuesday night looking like a team that had allowed Nashville to write the script. The Predators scored twice on the power play in the opening period, pushed the lead to 3-0 early in the second and kept answering whenever the Maple Leafs tried to climb back. Then the game became a showcase for the two first-overall picks who now define very different parts of Toronto’s timeline.
Gavin McKenna broke through for the first goal and first assist of his NHL career. Auston Matthews finished with a goal and three assists, then ended the comeback with 14 seconds left in overtime. Around them, William Nylander produced three points, Jack Roslovic tied the game in the third, and Toronto turned a night full of Nashville milestones into a 5-4 win.
McKenna’s first NHL points arrived when Toronto needed them most
McKenna entered his fourth NHL game without a point, which is hardly a crisis for an 18-year-old but is long enough for the first one to start carrying extra weight. His breakthrough came in stages. First, he helped start Toronto’s response from 3-0 down by feeding John Tavares on the rush for his first NHL assist. That goal mattered beyond the personal milestone because it gave the Maple Leafs a reason to believe the game had changed.
Two minutes later, Nylander scored on the power play to make it 3-2. Nashville restored a two-goal cushion through Steven Stamkos, but McKenna answered 61 seconds later with the moment Toronto had been waiting for. Matthews found him on the right side, McKenna got his feet around the puck and beat Juuse Saros high for his first NHL goal.
The finish looked important because it was not a ceremonial first goal in a decided game. Toronto was still chasing the result, and McKenna’s shot cut the deficit to one at 4-3. The rookie had entered the night averaging a little over 14 minutes per game and had been learning how quickly NHL space disappears. Against Nashville, his skill finally translated into the scoreboard at exactly the point when Toronto needed another push.
There was also a neat piece of franchise history attached to the night. McKenna became Toronto’s youngest player to record his first NHL point since Drake Berehowsky in 1990. More interestingly for the present, his first assist came on a goal by former No. 1 pick Tavares and his first goal was assisted by another former No. 1 pick in Matthews. Toronto’s rebuild around elite draft talent suddenly looked less theoretical.
Matthews turned the comeback into a four-point captain’s night
Matthews’ final line — one goal and three assists — tells only part of the story. Toronto had to solve a game that Nashville controlled early. Stamkos opened the scoring on the power play and Nils Höglander made it 2-0 less than two minutes later. Höglander’s second goal stretched the margin to three early in the second period, and Stamkos later made it 4-2 with his second of the night.
That gave Nashville its own collection of milestones. Stamkos moved past Joe Sakic and Jarome Iginla into sole possession of 17th on the NHL’s career goals list, reaching 627. Ryan O’Reilly collected his 900th career point. The Predators had every reason to leave Toronto talking about veteran history.
Instead, Matthews kept appearing in the sequences that changed the game. He assisted Nylander’s power-play goal, set up McKenna’s first, and then found Roslovic for the 4-4 equalizer midway through the third. Toronto briefly thought it had completed the comeback when Nylander scored again, only for Nashville to win an offside challenge and erase the goal.
The reversal could have flattened the Maple Leafs. It did not. In overtime, Saros stopped Nylander’s initial chance, but the rebound slid into Matthews’ path at the bottom of the right circle. He finished it with 14 seconds remaining. The goal was the 430th of his career, moving him past Bill Guerin into ninth among United States-born NHL goal scorers.
The larger takeaway was how Toronto won. This was not a clean defensive performance, and allowing a 3-0 deficit is not a habit any contender wants. But the comeback showed the value of having multiple elite offensive layers. McKenna supplied the breakthrough moment, Nylander kept pressure on Nashville, Roslovic supplied the tying finish, and Matthews connected the entire sequence. On a night when the rookie reached the scoreboard for the first time, the captain still showed why Toronto’s offense remains built around him.
One October comeback will not answer every question around the Maple Leafs, but it gave Toronto a useful picture of what its new hierarchy can look like. McKenna does not need to carry the offense immediately; he needs to add another dangerous layer to a group that already has Matthews and Nylander driving play. Against Nashville, his first NHL points arrived inside a comeback rather than beside it.
That made the ending fit. The newest first-overall pick helped pull Toronto back into the game, and the established one finished it. For the Maple Leafs, that is a far more interesting milestone than any single number on the scoresheet.
