Late goal from Marner lifts Maple Leafs over Nashville, 2-1

In Toronto, Mitchell Marner‘s power play goal with 75 seconds left on the clock in the third period gave the Maple Leafs a 2-1 win over the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night. William Nylander had the primary assist on the winner.

“‘Willy’ just made a great play down to me, and in that moment I’m just trying not to get that blocked or get that saved to be on a highlight reel,” Marner said. “Just trying to put it in the net, and lucky enough I was able to.”

Matt Murray made 32 saves in the Toronto win.

“[Murray deserves] a ton of credit, a ton,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “To me, their guy on the other end was playing really well too; that’s an elite goalie down the other way, so you need to match him save for save. We generated looks and weren’t getting much to show for it, so he has to stay strong and stand tall.

“For me, he’s full marks tonight. …I’m not sure there’s ever been a game where the goaltender won us the game, and in a lot of ways you could say that here tonight.”

The Maple Leafs improved to 26-9-7.

“There wasn’t a lot of ice or plays to be made, but I thought we just stuck with our game plan of sticking with being hard to play through the neutral zone, trying to get back quickly on pucks and make plays to get out of our zone,” Marner said. “I thought our defense did a great job with their gaps tonight, being tight and turning a lot of plays away and our forwards were there for the back pressure when needed.”

John Tavares gave Toronto a 10 lead at 16:54 of the first period.

“Scoring always is great and always means something, so I just want to continue to help the team,” Tavares said. “It’s just one on the year tonight so nice to get there, but I can’t say I was really thinking about [getting to 20].”

The loss dropped the Preds to 19-15-6.

“I thought [our effort] was pretty good,” Nashville coach John Hynes said. “I thought in the first period they had the better of the play, but I liked our second and third periods. It was a pretty even game.

“It was unfortunate we had that penalty at the end. We did a good job on the penalty kill all night and killed the majority of that off. They’re a good team, good on the power play. You can’t give them those looks, and we allowed their power play to be the difference in the game.”

Nashville tied the game early in the second period on a goal fro Filip Forsberg.

“I thought we defended well, maybe not in the first [period when] we gave them a little bit too many chances, but in the second and third we defended really well,” Forsberg said. “Juuse was there when we needed him. Overall, it was a decent game, but it just stinks when [we give up] a late one like that.”