Maple Leafs plug Oilers

In Toronto, the Maple Leafs struck four times n the middle frame and Andreas Johnsson scored twice in a 6-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers.

“The puck has been going in on the few shots I’ve had, so it feels nice,” Johnsson said. “Obviously, it’s not going to continue at the same rate, but I’m going to keep working and try to score some more goals.”

The Leafs have won three straight and trail second place in the Atlantic by a single point.

Toronto improved to 39-20-4.

“I feel like we have a lot of confidence out there,” Johnsson said. “We know we haven’t had the greatest starts lately, but we know if we keep grinding, we’ll create opportunities and it seems like once someone starts rolling, the others will follow that guy. Marleau lifted us up with an important goal, and then Marner right away and then after that there was no stopping.”

Frederik Andersen made 34 saves in the win.

Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored for the Oilers who are 3-9-4 in their last 16 games.

“Too many little mistakes,” Draisaitl said. “We had a really good first, but if you have too many little mistakes against this team, clearly they’ll take full advantage of that and that’s what they did tonight.”

Edmonton dropped to 26-30-7.

“We had a really good first period,” Oilers forward Milan Lucic said. “We came to play, we outworked them, played in the offensive zone and did all the things we were supposed to do, and then it was almost like we decided to go into a skill game instead of a work game in the second period and it cost us big.”

Mitchell Marner, Patrick Marleau, John Tavares, and William Nylander also scored for the Leafs.

[WATCH: All Oilers vs. Maple Leafs highlights]

Mikko Koskinen got the start for the Oilers and was given the hook after surrendering four and making 12 saves.

“We’ve been playing some pretty strong hockey,” Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “It was a [bad] second period, absolutely, but we have a game tomorrow night (at Ottawa Senators) so we need to park this one and get back to the way we played in the first period. We can sit here and whine and complain but at the end of the day, 7 o’clock tomorrow we have another game and that’s where our focus needs to head to.”

Anthony Stolarz entered the game in the second period and made 18 saves; it was his first appearance with the Oilers since being traded by the Philadelphia FLyers.