Marner has shootout winner as Leafs beat Stars 6-5
TORONTO — Mitch Marner scored the shootout winner as the Toronto Maple Leafs extended their franchise-record home winning streak to 11 games with a wild 6-5 victory over the Dallas Stars on Wednesday.
Marner beat Kari Lehtonen in the third round of the shootout as Toronto stormed back from 4-2 and 5-4 deficits in the third period.
James van Riemsdyk, with his third-career hat trick, Nazem Kadri and Patrick Marleau scored in regulation for Toronto (41-22-7). Frederik Andersen allowed three goals on 20 shots before getting lifted just past the game’s midway point with an upper-body injury.
Curtis McElhinney stopped 13 shots — including two big saves on Benn during a power play in overtime — the rest of the way for the Leafs, who are now 3-2-2 since star centre Auston Matthews
went down with a shoulder injury on Feb. 22.
Tyler Bozak, who also scored in the shootout, and Marner each added two assists.
Tyler Seguin, with a goal and two assists, Jamie Benn, with a
goal and an assist, Radek Faksa, Remi Elie and Brett Ritchie scored in regulation for Dallas (38-26-7). Lehtonen made 26 stops through 65 minutes of action for the Stars, who were playing their third game in four nights.
After the Leafs stormed back with two goals in the third to tie things 4-4, Ritchie took a feed from Seguin and beat McElhinney at 13:18 on the shortside for his sixth goal of the season.
But Marleau tied it with 15.3 seconds left in regulation when he tipped home Marner’s shot for his 22nd to send the game overtime.
Outshot 25-15 through what were a listless two periods after a jumping out to an early 2-0 lead, the Leafs got back within one at 5:13 of the third when van Riemsdyk softly flipped his second of the night and 28th of the campaign into the roof of Lehtonen’s net.
Toronto got the game’s first power play with about 10 minutes left in regulation, and van Riemsdyk scored his third goal of the night, and team-leading 29th of the season, at 10:43 off a hard pass from Marner.
Van Riemsdyk’s three goals
moved him past Matthews, who missed his 17th game of the season through injury, for the team lead.
Toronto’s last home loss before Wednesday came on Jan. 22 against Colorado.
Tied 2-2 after the first period, the Stars came out flying to start the second — outshooting Toronto 9-1 in the process — before Seguin gave his team its first lead at 4:30.
The slick centre took a quick shot off the rush, stepped around Leafs defenceman Jake Gardiner and beat Andersen between the legs on the rebound for his 37th.
Andersen left the crease during a television timeout with 9:35
left in the second and went straight to the locker-room.
Coming off back-to-back losses, including Tuesday’s 4-2 setback in Montreal, the Stars made it 4-2 at 14:03 when Elie scored his sixth off a nice no-look feed from Devin Shore past a helpless McElhinney.
Toronto bounced back off a recent 0-2-2 road trip to defeat two-time defending Stanley Cup champions Pittsburgh 5-2 on Saturday, in the process setting a new club record for consecutive home wins with 10.
While the Leafs are all but assured of finishing as the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division with the playoffs less than a month away, the Stars find themselves in a battle for their post-season lives in the tightly-packed Western Conference standings.
Toronto opened the scoring at 4:28 of the first period when Kadri took advantage of a horrendous Lehtonen miscue in front to tap home his 27th.
The crowd at Air Canada Centre barely had a chance to get back in their seats before van Riemsdyk made it 2-0 just 25 seconds later when he banged in a rebound — also his 27th — off a scramble in front. The Stars got on the board with the teams playing 4-on-4 at 14:29 when Seguin beat Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly to a puck in the corner off a faceoff and fed Benn, who made no mistake in burying his 25th.
Dallas then tied it 1:32 later when Greg Pateryn blasted a shot from the point that ticked off Faksa in front for his 14th.