Career night for Leafs’ Kadri

TORONTO - Nazem Kadri picked up his fourth-career hat trick and recorded a career-high five points as the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-3 on Wednesday.

Frederik Andersen made a careerhigh 54 saves for the Maple Leafs (35-19-5), who went 5-0-0 on their homestand.

The Blue Jackets (29-24-4) recorded 50 or more shots in their third straight game, making them the first team to accomplish the feat in the post-expansion era (since 1967-68). Joonas Korpisalo made 22 saves in defeat.

The Leafs played much of the game without defenceman Jake Gardiner, who left the game after one period of play with a lowerbody injury. The cause of the ailment is unknown.

The Leafs opened the scoring when Dominic Moore scored his fifth goal of the season while on a 2-on-1. With David Savard taking away the passing lane to Kasperi Kapanen, Moore took a backhanded shot and beat Korpisalo. Roman Polak and Travis Dermott collected the assists at 4:38. Toronto added to its lead when Kadri cut around Koripsalo before using a screen to score his first goal of the game to make it 2-0. James van Riemsdyk and Morgan Rielly collected assists at 7:36.

The Blue Jackets cut Toronto’s lead in half when Nick Foligno received a centring pass from Alexander Wennberg and fired a backhander past Andersen. Dean Kukan picked up the secondary assist at 18:21.