Leafs win 5-2 as penalty kill deflates Blue Jackets

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Columbus Blue Jackets played with a man advantage over Toronto for nearly seven minutes in the third period Wednesday night, thanks to a quirky mistake by the Maples Leafs. But the Blue Jackets couldn’t use it to their advantage.

Toronto snuffed out the fiveminute power play then remained a man down for nearly two more minutes because no one had gone to the box to serve the time. The penalty-kill seemed to flatten the Blue Jackets, and the Maple Leafs cruised to a 5-2 victory.

“I think that took a lot of momentum away from them,” said Nazem Kadri, who had a goal and an assist for Toronto. “They started the second and third periods off pretty well, and that (penalty kill) just came up huge for us.”

William Nylander and Leo Komarov had a goal and an assist each, and Auston Matthews and Nikita Zaitsev also tallied for Toronto. Frederik Andersen had 32 saves as the Maple Leafs moved past Boston into third place in the Atlantic Division.

A hard-hitting game was punctuated by Toronto’s Roman Polak, who unloaded a hit that plastered Oliver Bjorkstrand’s face into the glass, earning the big defenceman a fiveminute major penalty.

David Savard and Brandon Saad scored for Columbus, which lost for the first time in five games. Backup goaltender Joonas Korpisalo stopped 27 shots. The Blue Jackets stayed in third place in the Metropolitan Division, two points behind Washington and one behind Pittsburgh. They play the Capitals in Washington on tonight.

The Blue Jackets fought back from a 2-0 firstperiod deficit to tie the game in the second, but were held scoreless in the final period, despite the strange extended power-play situation.

“There’s no excuse,” Saad said. “We’ve got to create more chances, more traffic. For us, that’s kind of a key moment in the game where even if we don’t score a goal we have to create some momentum off that, and they just outworked us.”