In Columbus, the Blue Jackets’ Adam Fantilli scored at 13:46 of the third period on Friday to their match with the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs at 5-5, and force extra time
“It felt great,” Fantilli said. “I know we have it in this locker room. It felt amazing to see one go our way.”
Just past the midway point of the extra session, Johnny Gaudreau hit for the game-winner in a 6-5 win for Columbus.
“[Damon Severson] found me wide open in front and I just kind of tapped it in the net,” Gaudreau said. “We’ve got to build off this.”
Elvis Merzlikins made 12 saves in the first period for Columbus, he left the game in the first intermission for an illness.
Spencer Martin made 16 saves, in relief.
The Blue Jackets moved to 12-18-7.
“We got better as the game went on,” Columbus coach Pascal Vincent said. “I thought in the third we were playing our style and [with the] intensity we need. In the third we were a good team … I liked the way we bounced back.
“I keep telling them we’re improving. At some point you need some results against a good team.”
Toronto took a 1-0 lead on an Auston Marner strike at 4:14 of the opening stanza.
Columbus replied just past the midway point of the first on a marker form Cole Sillinger at 11:1 for a 1-1 tie.7.
Matthews scored his second of the period at 12:55 to send the game to the second period with the Leafs ahead, 2-1.
“After we scored to make it 3-1, too much [was] coming back our way, just a little too much high-risk stuff,” Matthews said. “They’ve got some pretty good players. We’ve seen them two, three, times now the past two weeks, so we’re pretty familiar with how they play and like to transition the puck.”
The Maple Leafs dropped to 17-9-7.
“Play that game over 100 times, we probably win it 99 times,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said, “But you can’t make those kinds of mistakes with the goaltending ‘Sammy’s’ going through right now. We’ve got to support him better if we want to win the game.”
The teams traded three-goal efforts in the middle frame.
In the second, Toronto extended their lead to 3-1 when Nicholas Robertson scored with 95 seconds gone in the period.
The Blue Jackets’ Brendan Gaunce responded at 3:20 to trim the deficit to 3-2.
William Nylander hit off the power play at 9:42 of the second to restore the two-goal lead at 4-2.
Columbus then rallied for two goals to tie the game.
Less than two minutes later, the Blue Jackets got that one back with a strike off a 4-on-3 power play pulled yo make it 4-3. Dmitri Voronkov scored off a deflection.
Kent Johnson knotted it up at 4-4, when he scored at 12:43.
Thew Maple Leafs took a 5-4 lead into the third period when John Tavares scored off a power play on a tip in with 55 seconds left in the middle frame.
Ilya Samsonov made 15 saves in the loss.
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