Feisty Maple Leafs shake off Hurricanes
TORONTO — Mitch Marner and Tyler Bozak each had a goal and three assists, and the Toronto Maple Leafs stopped a three-game slide by routing the Carolina Hurricanes 8-1 on Tuesday.
Toronto scored four in the first and four more in the third on a special anniversary for the NHL. The first NHL games were played on Dec. 19, 1917, including a 10-9 win by the Montreal Wanderers over Toronto.
James van Riemsdyk had a goal and two assists for the Maple Leafs, and Leo Komarov, Patrick Marleau, Kasperi Kapanen, William Nylander and Connor Carrick also scored. Frederik Andersen made 32 saves.
Jeff Skinner scored for Carolina, and Scott Darling stopped 27 shots. The Hurricanes had won three in a row.
Toronto played without star center Auston Matthews, who missed his fifth straight game because of an upper-body injury. The Maple Leafs had scored just four times in their previous four games before breaking out against the Hurricanes.
Komarov put Toronto ahead to stay with the team’s first short-handed goal of the season just 2:52 into the first. Komarov kept the puck in transition on a 2-on-1 and beat Darling for his first point since he scored at Calgary on Nov. 28.
The Leafs increased their lead to 2-0 when Marner skated over the Carolina blue line on a power play and beat Darling with a wrist shot from the top of the circle at 5:33.
Skinner responded with a knuckler at 9:07 that eluded Andersen, but van Riemsdyk restored Toronto’s two-goal lead by putting home a rebound with the man advantage for his team-leading 16th of the season.
Henrik Lundqvist stopped 39 shots, Paul Carey scored twice and New York beat Anaheim at home. Kevin Hayes and Michael Grabner also scored for New York. Ondrej Kase scored for the Ducks. Trevor Daley scored the goahead goal midway through the third period and Detroit beat New York on the road for their third win in 13 games. Martin Frk, Gustav Nyquist, Anthony Mantha, Mike Green and Luke Glendening also scored for the Red Wings, who entered 2-5-5 in their last 12.
Eric Staal scored twice, Nate Prosser had a goal and an assist and Minnesota rallied from a two-goal deficit to beat Ottawa on the road. Ottawa led 3-1 in the second period behind two goals from Erik Karlsson and another from Jean-Gabriel Pageau. Chris Stewart and Mikko Koivu scored to tie it before the second intermission, and then Prosser, Jonas Brodin and Staal scored for Minnesota in the final period.
Jake DeBrusk scored for the second straight night, Anton Khudobin turned away 36 shots and Boston blanked Buffalo on the road. Tim Schaller and David Backes added emptynet goals in the closing minutes of the game. Brandon Tanev scored the tiebreaking goal with 1:26 left, sending Winnipeg to a road victory over Nashville. Nikolaj Ehlers had two goals and Adam Lowry, Patrik Laine and Blake Wheeler also scored for the Jets. Andre Burakovsky scored his second goal of the game 1:51 into overtime, lifting Washington over Dallas on the road. Michael Matheson scored the game-winner in the third period as Florida put in three unanswered goals to beat Arizona on the road.