In Toronto, the Maple Leafs fell behind in the first period on a goal from the Detroit Red Wings’ Jake Walman.
From there it was all Maple Leafs as they scored twice in the second period and two more in the third period for a 4-1 win on Saturday.
John Tavares hit for a double, with a goal in each of the periods.
Ilya Samsonov made 22 saves in the Toronto win.
“Goaltending has been solid all year,” Tavares said. “Samsonov was great today. It was a slow start for us, but he was solid. We obviously had to get our game going, which we did, and then we wore them down, capitalized and took care of them in the third period.”
The Maple Leafs improved to 24-9-7.
“Last four games for me, really hard,” Samsonov said. “But today I believe in my skill, I believe in my mental spot, and I know if you work hard every day the luck is coming back. I see today I believe I’m back on track and stopping the puck and getting some help for my teammates for a win.”
Mitchell Marner had a power play goal 24 seconds into the middle frame to get the Maple Leafs’ offense on the board, he also added an assist in the win to reach 500 career NHL points.
“It’s just a cool moment, for sure,” Marner said. “You definitely don’t try and really think about setting milestones or doing milestones and trying not to be selfish about yourself, but it’s definitely a cool one, especially growing up in this city and dreaming of playing for this team and doing it all with this team. It’s been special, a lot of fun, but there are bigger goals ahead.”
The Red Wings dropped to 18-15-7.
“Five-on-5 play, good, but unfortunately we lost the special teams battle again tonight,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said. “Our penalty kill was better, going 4-for-5 on the kill, but pretty good first period, didn’t give up much. I didn’t really hate our second, and it looks like we lost a little bit of gas. There were not many stops in that period, and with the back-to-back, coming out of that period down 2-1, we didn’t have enough for a push in the third.”
Pontus Holmberg extended the Maple Leafs lead to 3-1 in the third period.
“I just thought Detroit was playing harder than us, and it showed,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “They had a little more urgency in everything they were doing. We knew they were going to forecheck and make it hard to get out of our end, and they did that, but we made it easier on them. Players responded really well, but Samsonov’s play gave us a chance to gain confidence and stay with it.”
Tavares’ second was into an empty net.
Magnus Hellberg made 25 saves in the loss.
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