Matthews scores twice in return to lift Leafs by Sharks
TORONTO >> Auston Matthews had two goals and an assist in his return from a left shoulder injury that sidelined him a month and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the San Jose Sharks 5-3 Wednesday night for their third straight victory.
John Tavares also scored twice, former San Jose star Patrick Marleau added a goal, Mitch Marner had three assists, and Andreas Johnsson finished with two assists to help Toronto improve to 18-8-0. Frederik Andersen made 38 saves to improve to 8-2-0 over his last 10 starts.
Tomas Hertl, Joe Pavelski and Melker Karlsson scored for San Jose, Logan Couture had two assists and Aaron Dell made
24 saves. Matthews sat out 14 games after taking a clean hit from Winnipeg’s Jacob Trouba on Oct. 27. The 21-year-old center had
10 goals and six assists in the first seven games of the season, but was held off the scoresheet in three consecutive outings before getting hurt. He made an almost immediate impact against San Jose, taking a pass from Marner and finding Tavares at the edge of the crease on a power play at 3:38.
The 39-year-old Marleau, who played 19 seasons with the Sharks, scored against San Jose for the first time, giving him at least one goal against all 31 NHL franchises.
RED WINGS 4, BLUES 3 >> Tyler Bertuzzi broke a tie with 6:53 to go with his second goal of the game and Detroit held on to beat St. Louis after blowing a 3-0 lead.
Bertuzzi put in a loose puck from just outside the crease for his eighth goal of the season.
Thomas Vanek had a goal and an assist, Andreas Athanasiou also scored, defenseman Mike Green had two assists and Jimmy Howard made 33 saves to help Detroit snap a threegame losing streak.
David Perron scored twice for St. Louis, Vladimir Tarasenko added a goal and Jake Allen stopped 27 shots. The Blues have lost five of their last six. DUCKS 3, PANTHERS 2 >> Nick Ritchie’s timing has been good for the Anaheim Ducks the past two games.
Ritchie broke a tie with 1:28 left with his second goal of the game, John Gibson made 42 saves and the Ducks beat Florida.
Ritchie grabbed a loose puck in front and beat goalie James Reimer to the right side. Ritchie also scored the winning goal in Tuesday’s 3-1 win at Tampa Bay.
“Obviously, being a bigger guy, I like to get to the front of the net,” Ritchie said. “It’s a place where I need to do it on this team. I’ve done a good job of it the last couple of games and I got rewarded for it.”
Josh Manson also scored to help the Ducks win for the fourth time in five games.
“Anytime you can take two games, especially back-to-back, you’ve got to feel good about ourselves a little bit, but we’ve got lots of room for improvement in the game,” coach Randy Carlyle said. “The most encouraging part for us is we were able to get our feet underneath us and play a decent third period and found a way to get a goal.”
Evgenii Dadonov and Aaron Ekblad scored for Florida, Jonathan Huberdeau had two assists, and Reimer made 22 saves.
The Panthers lost for the fourth time in five games. Monday, the Panthers gave up the tying goal with 1.8 seconds left in regulation, then lost 5-4 in overtime to the Chicago Blackhawks.
“It is frustrating. These kinds of games, we’ve got to at least get a point,” Huberdeau said. “We can’t get scored on late like that. You’ve got to battle through it the whole 60.”
Dadonov gave Florida a
2-1 lead midway through the second period with a power-play goal. Dadonov redirected Huberdeau’s shot from the point.
The Ducks tied it at 2 at
12:28 of the second when Ritchie deflected Marcus Pettersson’s point shot.