Leafs, Matthews rise to the occasion against Sabres
BUFFALO: Auston Matthews scored his second goal with three seconds on the clock in overtime, and the Toronto Maple Leafs matched their best start in 84 years with a 4-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night.
The Maple Leafs won their fifth straight game and improved to 20-8. The only other time it took them just 28 games to reach 20 wins was when they opened the 1934-35 season at 20-6-2.
Patrick Marleau scored with 5:13 minutes remaining in regulation to force overtime, and Kasperi Kapanen set up the decisive goal. Jake Gardiner also scored and Mitchell Marner had an assist to give him 11 in five games. Frederik Andersen stopped 38 shots to win his fourth straight.
Jack Eichel scored twice for Buffalo, who dropped to 0-2-2 since equalling the franchise record with a 10-game winning streak. Sam Reinhart had a goal and an assist.
In Las Vegas, Nate Schmidt scored twice in the final two minutes to lift the Golden Knights over the Washington Capitals 5-3 in a rematch of the Stanley Cup final last spring.
It was the first time Washington skated at T-Mobile Arena since winning and hoisting the Stanley Cup in June.
Schmidt burst through the neutral zone and beat goalie Braden Holtby with a tie-breaking wrist shot with 1:24 minutes left for his first goal of the season. The former Capital added an empty-netter moments later.
Ryan Reaves, Pierre Edouard-Bellemare and Cody Eakin also scored for the Golden Knights. Marc-Andre Fleury made 23 saves.
Jakub Vrana had two goals and Alex Ovechkin scored for Washington. Holtby also stopped 23 shots.
Patric Hornqvist’s natural hat-trick in the third period powered hosts Pittsburgh past Colorado 6-3.
The Avalanche had erased a three-goal deficit to tie the game going into the third when Hornqvist went to work.
His power-play goal 6:11 minutes into the final period gave the Penguins the lead. Hornqvist beat Semyon Varlamov again 1:21 minutes later to push Pittsburgh’s advantage to two, and the veteran from Sweden completed the hat-trick on his next shift when he fired a wrist shot by Varlamov less than 90 seconds later.
Jake Guentzel, Evgeni Malkin and Derick Brassard also scored for the Penguins, who halted Colorado’s 11-game point streak. Kris Letang added two assists, and Casey DeSmith made 42 saves.
Tyson Barrie, Carl Soderberg and Matt Nieto scored for the Avalanche, who had their six-game road win streak snapped.
Nikita Kucherov and defenceman Victor Hedman scored in a shoot-out to give visiting Tampa Bay a 6-5 comeback win over Detroit.
The Lightning erased a 5-3 deficit in the third period and overcame Frans Nielsen’s hat-trick. Mathieu Joseph had two goals and an assist for Tampa Bay.