Coyotes down Maple Leafs in OT, 5-4

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In Toronto, Jakob Chychrun‘s second goal of the game came in extra time on Thursday to give the Arizona Coyotes a 6-5 win over the Maple Leafs.“It happened a few times earlier in the year where we had bad third periods and just kind of fell apart, but we’ve been playing better and sticking with it and I think that showed tonight with our confidence,” Chychrun said.

The win was the fourth straight for the Coyotes.

“It was a tie game, you can’t get down,” Chychrun said. “It’s like a 0-0 game, you just have to treat it like that and stay in the present. I think when you give up quick ones you can kind of get down, but as a group we just stayed calm and told each other we’re still in this thing.”

Scott Wedgewood made 34 saves in the Arizona win.

The Coyotes held a 3-0 lead but the let the Maple Leafs back into the game.

The Coyotes moved to 18-35-4.

Travis Boyd, Alex Galchenyuk, and  Chychrun scored in the first period for the 3-0 lead.

Toronto’s Pierre Engvall  scored early in the middle frame to make it 3-1.

Arizona’s Christian Fischer  pushed the lead back to three. 4-1, before the Maple Leafs rallied.

Alexander Kerfoot, Auston Matthews, and William Nylander scored to help get the Leafs even at 4-4.

“We gave ourselves a chance, and Erik gave us a chance in there, so we battled back, got a point, but obviously tonight is just not good enough from the start,” Matthews said. “We didn’t get playing until the third period.”

Petr Mrazek got the start for Toronto and made eight saves, surrendering four gals, before getting the hook in the middle frame.

Erik Kallgren made seven saves in a mop up role for his first NHL appearance.

“[Erik] was great, he was calm, cool, collected,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Some big saves. He looked confident for a guy going in for the first time under those circumstances with no heads-up. I thought he looked excellent. Obviously nothing he could do at all on the winning goal.

“It’s tough [for Mrazek], I don’t know what else to say. It’s tough. When you give up the first two like that you can’t give up three and four. You’ve got to find a way to make the saves for us in that case, so at that point it was obvious we needed to change.”