Knee-jerk reaction: Maple Leafs cruise to win over Flyers as Blue Jays fight for World Series

If you’re here after watching the Toronto Maple Leafs game instead of the Toronto Blue Jays’ win-or-go-home Game 7 against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, I have a question to ask you. If you were to watch both games like I did, I couldn’t help but recognize the madness of my fellow man.

On that note, if you watched the Leafs game tonight in any capacity, they at least made it worth it. The Maple Leafs came away with a 5-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers to kick off the month of November with two points and start things off right.

The storyline of the game, for those who missed it, ended up being Easton Cowan’s first NHL goal. He took a pass from John Tavares and fired a nice shot over the shoulder of Flyers goalkeeper Daniel Vladar, extending the team’s lead to 4–1 in the opening minute of the third period. Other goals in the match came from Auston Matthews, who opened the scoring, Jake McCabe, Nick Robertson and Calle Jarnkrok on the empty net.

It wasn’t a perfect night unfortunately, in fact there was a pretty big wound on the Maple Leafs side coming out of the game. Veteran defenseman Chris Tanev was involved in what seemed like a fairly innocuous-looking collision with Flyers forward Matvei Michkov, but took hard contact with the back of his helmet and had to be removed from the game on a stretcher. Tanev had just returned from a similar injury involving his head after taking the New Jersey Devils to Dawson Mercer’s shoulder in the jaw when the Leafs faced the Devils a few weeks ago.

Regardless of Tanev’s injury at the end, the team should be happy with the way they turned things around on Saturday night and will look to keep the momentum going when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins.

PRESENTED BY VIVID CHAIRS