Pyatt scores late; Senators beat Leafs, 4-3
Tom Pyatt scored the winner with 3:05 to play as the Ottawa Senators beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3, on Wednesday night in the final game for both National Hockey League teams before starting their bye weeks.
Pyatt took a feed from Matt Duchene on a three-on-one after Morgan Rielly got caught pinching at Ottawa’s blue line and beat Frederik Andersen high on the blocker side.
Thomas Chabot, Mike Hoffman and Gabriel Dumont also scored for the Senators (15-18-9), who were coming off an 8-2 loss against Chicago a night earlier.
Craig Anderson bounced back from being yanked against the Blackhawks by making 44 saves.
Andreas Borgman, James van Riemsdyk and Rielly scored for the Maple Leafs (2517-3), while Andersen made 29 saves in defeat.
Toronto’s next game is Tuesday when it hosts the St. Louis Blues. Ottawa returns to the ice Jan. 18 at home against the Blues.
Auston Matthews, who is the only Leaf to be selected to participate in the NHL’s all-star weekend later this month, had three scoring chances in the opening minutes of the first period, but had nothing to show for the effort other than a shot off the crossbar.
Toronto couldn’t solve Anderson through 36 minutes despite having the first three power plays of the game and 28 shots against the Ottawa netminder up to that point — including eight alone from van Riemsdyk.
Leafs’ Leo Komarov hit Jean-Gabriel Pageau awkwardly into the sideboards late in the game but Pageau appeared to be OK despite going to the bench.
Toronto coach Mike Babcock pulled Andersen with over two minutes to play, looking for the equalizer, but couldn’t get it.
NOTES: Ottawa’s Bobby Ryan missed the game with a hand injury suffered the night before against Chicago. There is no time table for his return. He was replaced by Filip Chlapik, who was recalled from AHL Belleville . ... Connor Carrick was in for Travis Dermott on Toronto’s blue line . ... Ottawa defenceman Erik Karlsson was named to the all-star team for the fifth time.