TORONTO -- For Auston Matthews’ first preseason game with the Toronto Maple Leafs’ on Sunday, head coach Mike Babcock wasted no time issuing a challenge to him and the winger he’d be centering, William Nylander.

“They’re both good young players,” Babcock said before the game. “They both think they’re the best players so let’s find out who is and they can compete all the time out there.”

Unlike the last three games he played at Air Canada Centre, as a member of the World Cup of Hockey’s Team North America, Matthews didn’t register a point in the first five minutes of the game. He didn’t end up on the score sheet at all. But once he got going in the Maple Leafs 3-2 overtime victory against the Montreal Canadiens, Matthews showed off some of that high-end talent fans had been waiting to see in action.

“[Tonight] was great. Even for a preseason game, a lot of fans came out and supported the team,” Matthews said. “It was pretty loud out there, especially with the OT and 3-on-3 being pretty crazy, so it was definitely a pretty good outing.”

It was only earlier on Sunday, during morning practice, that Matthews played with Nylander for the first time. His most common companion on the left side in camp had been James van Riemsdyk, but with Babcock back calling the shots, he decided to throw Nylander and Matthews together right away.

The first period saw a few miscues between those two and their third linemate, right winger Zach Hyman – a couple turnovers, a missed scoring chance each for Matthews and Hyman, both off feeds from Nylander. By the second period, there was more cohesion, and Matthews began to emerge, using his strength and speed to extend plays. At one point he single-handedly dominated possession in the Canadiens’ zone to create scoring chances, earning a round of applause from the crowd. And there was also the wrister he rung off the crossbar on the power play late in the period, joking afterwards he was “saving his goals” for the regular season.

“The first period was a bit of a feeling-out process, a little bit sloppy on [our] part,” Matthews said. “But in the second and third we definitely created a lot of opportunities, we were able to find each other and extend the puck possession in the offensive zone and kind of force the D to get back on their heels. All three of are fast, we work hard and compete.”

While Toronto’s lineup consisted of mostly NHL-calibre talent, and included all of the World Cup participants who hadn’t yet seen time in the preseason, Montreal’s roster was less experienced. The Maple Leafs’ youth still showed though, in not rushing the net with the puck and trying to do too much offensively. Matthews finished the night plus-2, and 1-for-5 in the face-off dot.

“[Matthews has] lots of skill. He’ll figure it out,” Babcock said post-game. “Those guys want to score, they want to get points. They’re going to figure out all this stick-handling on the outside isn’t going to get that done in the National Hockey League. They’ll figure that out quick.”

The Maple Leafs travel to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Monday to take on the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday, giving them little time to dwell on what went right and wrong in their only preseason game on home ice.

“We won. We turned the puck over just for fun,” Babcock said. "We’ve got way more skill, period. Skating, shooting, stickhandling, hockey sense. More skill. We obviously have to get a lot better [but] there are still lots of good players [here].”

Takeaways

Even with a multitude of offensive talent on the ice, it was the defencemen who got it done on Sunday. In his first preseason appearance for the Maple Leafs, defender Nikita Zaitsev had an immediate impact. He got Toronto on the board midway through the second frame to tie the game 1-1. Paired with Matt Hunwick for most of the game and used in the first power-play group, Zaitsev’s contributions were felt in all three phases of the game. Morgan Rielly added the go-ahead goal and Hunwick, coming off a two-goal performance on Friday in Buffalo, tallied the overtime winner. “To me of all the guys, all those [new] kids we were talking about, Zaitsev’s not a kid, but he was the best by far [tonight],” said Babcock.

At 6-foot-5, centre Frederik Gauthier is immediately noticeable on the ice, a big man who skates well and is sound defensively. After a seven-game stint with Toronto last season, Gauthier is striving to build on that opportunity. He got the call Sunday to centre the Leafs’ fourth line with Matt Martin and Connor Brown, also seeing time on the penalty kill where he was tasked with taking a few critical face-offs late. On a night when most of the Leafs NHL players were tapped, Gauthier’s selection was the product of a solid camp and an opportunity to audition for more time with the big club during the season.

Toronto’s power play was anemic for much of Sunday’s contest, going 0-9 with the extra man. They moved the puck fairly well, but players often point to being “too cute” when not capitalizing on opportunities and there was evidence of that. With a little more patience, the results should improve.

On the other side of special teams, the Maple Leafs penalty kill went 8-for-8, but was helped greatly in the second half of the game by Garret Sparks’ goaltending. Coming in for Jhonas Enroth midway through the second period, he made several great saves on the kill to keep the game tied. Sparks has had a strong preseason so far, stopping 17 of 17 shots in Thursday’s game and coming in cold to perform well on Sunday, halting 17 of 18 shots. On a 6-on-3 power play with less than three minutes left in the third, Sparks made a few stellar saves to give Toronto a chance to win in regulation.

Much was made during Sunday morning’s practices about players like Peter Holland and Frank Corrado being in the early, non-game group, with Brown and Rinat Valiev getting the call to play Sunday night. Like Gauthier, Brown and Valiev both played with the Maple Leafs for a short time last season (seven games for Brown, ten for Valiev) and both have had good camps. With further training camp cuts looming and Toronto Marlies training camp getting underway on Monday, giving those players another exhibition game isn’t surprising.