Auston Matthews was two minutes away from coming out unscathed, putting in one of his best performances of the regular season. It was a three-point night for the Toronto Maple Leafs captain, where he seemed to have led his team back into a game in which they had no reason to remain competitive. Matthews, Marner and Matthew Knies were the Maple Leafs’ only trio. for consistently running the game, while Chris Tanev’s shot-blocking heroics and Anthony Stolarz’s composed demeanor certainly deserve applause. But all this is of no use.

Matthews and the Maple Leafs highlighted an answer of their worst two-game stretch of the year and while the team was outplayed, outplayed and outplayed throughout the night, Toronto’s captain worked tirelessly and scored with one minute and 17 seconds left in regulation time to equalize the competition. Saturday’s game was a response game for Matthews and his counterpart, Brad Marchand, who had made costly mistakes that drew national attention after their respective head coaches took them to task.

And in the end, it was Marchand’s superior attention to detail that won out over Matthews. During the overtime period, where Matthews narrowly missed the net on a potential game-winner, he made the game-defining mistake. Matthews carelessly threw the puck onto the ice in his own defensive zone, apparently expecting the presence of a teammate. David Pastrnak maintained possession, fired a pass toward Marchand, who stuck at the net uncontested and scored the game-winning goal in overtime. We saw this scenario play out, but after Matthews took responsibility for Thursday’s performance, he was the last player you’d expect to commit an unforced turnover in overtime.