In Toronto Monday night, Frederik Andersen made 25 saves to help the Maple Leafs overcome the Vegas Golden Knights, 4-3, in the skills competition.
The Leafs had lost two straight and five of six before the win.
“Anytime you’ve been in a bad spell it’s usually ugly when you come out of it, but it’s a 
win and now we can breathe and get playing,” Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said.
Nazem Kadri scored two goals in the first frame and James van Riemsdyk added a marker in the opening to period for the Leafs who then needed to withstand the Knights’ rally.
Mitchell Marner scored the game-winner in the shootout.
“I was just trying to take a look at the puck quickly to calm it down and look at the goalie and kind of go eye-to-eye and see what he’s going to react to,” Marner said. “It stayed on my stick luckily and didn’t bounce over.”
James Neal,had scored to make the game 3-1 for the Leafs and Reilly Smith scored late in the middle frame to make it 3-2 headed to the third.
“We had a good push back after they went up a couple of goals, so I think that’s a positive,” Neal said. “We did some good things, we were playing hard and we had some good chances in overtime to end it.”
Deryk Engelland scored early in the third to help Vegas get a big point.
“I thought for the most part, we played a pretty solid game. For a little bit in the first, we were back on our heels a bit and they came out flying,” Engelland said of the game. “We battled back, played the rest of the game and kept going and to get that point, it’s good. We definitely could have come out with two points there; we had a lot of chances but to get that one point, that’s big,”
The Knights are 1-3-1 in their last five games.
“I wasn’t too happy about the third goal, so I definitely wanted to make sure I made up for it and I was glad we battled back and got the extra point,” Andersen said.
[WATCH: All Golden Knights vs. Maple Leafs highlights]
Maxime Lagace made 22 saves in taking the loss.
“When they scored that third goal, we just had to breathe and be patient and understand that we felt like we had controlled a lot of the game. Just staying with it, I think that’s really what it was. When you are vulnerable team, sometimes that’s hard to do. But I’m proud of our effort tonight,” Kadri said after the Knights tied the game in the third.
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