More than any other veteran player on the Toronto Maple Leafs, Scott Laughton needs this preseason to go well. After being a trade deadline acquisition and then failing to meet the high-end price that the Leafs paid for him, Laughton is ready to put that behind him. And he did exactly that in the first period Thursday night against the Montreal Canadiens.
In just the first few minutes, Laughton took advantage of a misread from a Canadiens defender, launched himself past him through the neutral zone in pursuit of the puck, picked it up at the top of the faceoff circle and then absolutely sniped it past Samuel Montembeault to open the scoring.