In Newark, Mitchell Marner hit for a double for the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night, in a 7-1 thrashing of the New Jersey Devils. 
Jack Campbell made 31 saves in the Leafs win, their fifth straight.
“In the game like this, where we score so much, you tend to overlook the goaltending part of it,” Toronto head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “But you go back and look at some of those chances when the game still could swing their way, [Campbell] was great. He made the saves we need him to make, and then times when we had breakdowns and gave up really good looks, he came up with game-changing saves.”
Toronto improved to 29-10-3.
Jack Hughes was the lone striker for New Jersey.
“The game of hockey is pretty simple,” New Jersey assistant Alain Nasreddine said. “There’s a puck, and you want it more than the other guy, and tonight they wanted it more. We’ve just got to wash this one away and try to forget about it because there’s nothing you can take out of this game except that’s how we don’t want to play.”
Toronto took a first period of 3-0 off strikes from Jason Spezza, Auston Matthews, and .David Kampf
“We’ve been really good on the puck,” Matthews said. “If we have to dump the puck or chip it in, we’ve been really good at hounding pucks, getting them back and attacking the net.
“I think all three of us have just been trying to work and find each other, create opportunities. At the same time, be responsible in our own end and try not to give up chances coming back our way.”
New Jersey fell to 15-25-5.
New Jersey has lost six straight, and won only one of their last 10.
The Maple Leafs extended their to 6-0 with goals from Marner, Michael Bunting, and Pierre Engvall in the middle frame.
Marner finished his double in the third period.
“We just haven’t really put a full 60 minutes together,” Marner said. “I think from the drop of the puck tonight, we wanted to come out, clog up that neutral zone, make it hard to get through us. When we got pucks in deep, we’re being hard on them, trying to find a shot, and I think we did a good job of that.”
Jon Gillies surrendered six goals to Toronto and made 22 saves before getting the hook in the third period.
“[Bunting, Matthews and Marner] are very much on the same page,” Keefe said. “They’re moving well with and without the puck to find each other. Take all those things, and combine it with the elite skill they have, they’re a hard group to handle. New Jersey has had a real tough time with them the past two games.”
Akira Schmid made seven saves in a mop up role.
“They just outskated us, outplayed us,” New Jersey’s Damon Severson said. “They did everything better than us tonight. That was definitely an embarrassing one.”

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