TORONTO – A lucky bounce off the boards from far to center David Kampf with 80 seconds left allowed the Toronto Maple Leafs to escape with a 5-4 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday.
When Chicago goalie Kevin Lankinen went behind his net to stop Morgan Rielly’s pitch, the puck came up to Kampf for an easy game winner against his old team. Lankinen allowed five goals on 26 shots.
The Maple Leafs (19-8-2) blew a 4-1 lead they had built up early in the second period. But they only fired three shots on goal in the intervening 20 minutes, and Chicago (10-15-2) took the lead near the end of the second period.
Then Dominik Kubalik scored early in the third period, and Jake McCabe deflected a screen with 9:18 remaining in regulation time.
William Nylander scored once and assisted two others, while John Tavares and Auston Matthews each scored a goal and an assist for the Maple Leafs to win for the second time in five outings without injured forward Mitch Marner.
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Marner (shoulder), Jason Spezza (suspension), Travis Dermott (shoulder) and Rasmus Sandin (knee) all missed the victory before 18,934 at Scotiabank Arena.
Petr Mrazek was solid in goal. He made his first start since being sidelined with a groin injury on October 30.
Mrazek made 31 saves and the visitors outshot the Maple Leafs 35-26. His most crucial save came within five minutes of the final frame when he closed his pads on Patrick Kane’s five-hole break attempt to keep Toronto in front by one goal.
Acting Blackhawks head coach Derek King made his first appearance behind an NHL bench in Toronto. He scored 45 goals in 161 games for the Maple Leafs in the late 1990s.
The Hamilton, Ontario native also spent six seasons as an assistant coach with the AHL Toronto Marlies before moving to the Blackhawks organization.
King’s team took an early 1-0 lead when Maple Leafs rookie defender Kristians Rubins got caught in a pinch, and his teammates were slow to cover him.
The result was an icebreaker from Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, his second, out of the race. It took him 26 games to score his first goal of the campaign in Montreal on Thursday after missing the entire 2020-21 season with chronic immune response syndrome.
The Maple Leafs then scored three goals, two on the power play, to gain a 3-1 lead after the first period.
Tavares scored with a soft shot to the wrist that Lankinen missed on the power play. Nylander was not controlled by Blackhawks center Kirby Dach to hit a pass from behind the goal line from Tavares.
Matthews threw in a pass from Ondrej Kase on the power play to make it 3-1. After his two-goal outing against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, Kase was elevated to Matthews’ right side at the top line.
The fourth row increased Toronto’s lead to 4-1 early in the second period with a shot to the wrist from Pierre Engvall. Rookie Alex Steeves received the second assist on goal for his first career point in his third game.
Chicago defenders Connor Murphy scored with a shot to Mrazek’s wrist, 10 seconds after an interference penalty to Toronto’s Michael Bunting expired.
Early in the third period, Chicago forward Philipp Kurashev edged out two Toronto defenders to hit a wide-open Kubalik with the puck to lead the Blackhawks to 4-3.
This Canadian Press report was first published on December 11, 2021.
© 2021 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca