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Toronto Maple Leafs

Buds Breakdown Weekly: Matthews Fails to Close the Season With 70 Goals

Plus, penalties cost last two games of the season, Game 1 playoff review

Anthony Testaguzza
Apr 21, 2024
∙ Paid

Welcome to another edition of the Buds Breakdown Weekly…

Buds Breakdown Weekly (The Hockey Writers)

In this week’s edition, the Toronto Maple Leafs finish their final two regular-season games against the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning and Game 1 of the first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins.

Also, Auston Matthews finished with 69 goals, penalties were the issue behind the result of their last two games, and a look at their performance in Game 1 of the first round.

Let’s get into it…


Matthews Finishes With 69 Goals

Losing four of the last five regular season games is no way to close out, but at least we had Matthews’ 70-goal milestone, or so we thought. As Matthews said after the end-of-season game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, it just “wasn’t meant to be,” I’m sure after what we saw this season from him, he will be 10 times better after this season. It is just crazy how lucky he was, and Matthews had so many opportunities that looked like guaranteed goals that miraculously hit the post or missed wide.

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