In Toronto, David Kampf scored for the Maple Leafs, with 80 seconds left on the regulation clock, on Saturday to blunt a Chicago Blackhawks rally that had tied the game, 4-4.
Kempf’s goal made it 5-4 for the final.
“It feels great scoring in the last couple minutes,” Kampf said. “It was a big goal for us, so it feels good for sure. I don’t know that it matters who the opponent was, I’m happy for every goal I score. We had a good lead in the third period, but we lost a couple plays and gave them a couple goals. That was bad, but two big points for us still is huge.”
Petr Mrazek made 31 saves for the Maple Leafs in the win.
“Mrazek played a [heck] of a night. Really it was two points thanks to him,” the Maple Leafs’ John Tavares (goal) said. “It was hard to leave the rink tonight feeling good about our game. We put ourselves in a really good spot, but we just didn’t take care of it like we’ve done pretty much all year.”
The Maple Leafs improved to 19-8-2.
Chicago’s Connor Murphy and Jake McCabe had a goal and two points each in the loss.
The Blackhawks dropped to 10-15-2.
Jonathan Toews scored in the first period to give the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead.
“It was not the start I wanted, but that’s hockey sometimes, so I tried to be focused on the next puck and I think I settled pretty well after that,” Mrazek said. “I just told myself, ‘Let’s stop the next one, let’s play well and let’s see what happens.'”
Pierre Engvall, Auston Matthews and William Nylander scored for the Maple Leafs, who had a 4-1 lead in the middle frame.
“I don’t want to say we were cheating on offense, but I just think we are out of sync,” Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We were trying to force pucks into the middle and playing against a team that plays a very conservative game defensively, they just hold the middle of the rink and wait for you to force pucks into the middle and then create turnovers and go. I didn’t like how we adapted to that.”
Murphy, Dominik Kubalik, and McCabe scored three straight goals to get the Blackhawks even at 4-4.
Kevin Lankinen made 21 saves in the Hawks loss.
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