William Nylander scored in the third round of a shootout to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 4-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
Nylander, who also scored the first goal of the game, fired a forehand shot over the glove of Vegas goaltender Robin Lehner to win it. Maple Leafs goalie Jack Campbell turned aside shootout tries by Evgenii Dadonov, Chandler Stephenson and Jonathan Marchessault.
Auston Matthews and Ilya Mikheyev also scored goals for Toronto while Campbell finished with 31 saves to improve to 18-5-3 on the season. Toronto improved to 5-0-1 in its past six games.
Alex Pietrangelo, William Karlsson and Keegan Kolesar scored for Vegas, which lost for the fourth time in its last five games (0-2-2). Lehner, who stopped shootout tries by Jason Spezza and Matthews before yielding Nylander's game-winner, finished with 15 saves.
Toronto jumped out to a 1-0 lead at the 1:24 mark of the first period. Nylander took a pass from Morgan Rielly, broke in free and deked Lehner and then tucked in a wrist shot around the goalie's left pad for his 16th goal of the season.
The Golden Knights tied it 13 minutes into the opening period on Kolesar's first career power-play goal. The right winger swatted a loose puck under the glove of Campbell and inside the right post for his third goal of the season.
Vegas controlled most of the second period action, outshooting Toronto 14-6, but the Maple Leafs scored the only two goals of the period to take a 3-1 lead
Matthews got the first when he slammed a cross-crease pass from Michael Bunting into an open right side of the net at 11:43. It was his 16th goal in the past 14 games and his 23rd of the season.
Mikheyev made it 3-1 at 16:46 with his fourth goal in four games. He put in the rebound of a Wayne Simmonds shot that bounced hard off the end boards to the right side of the crease, where he fired it past Lehner's glove side.
Vegas cut it to 3-2 at the 1:34 mark of the third period on Karlsson's fifth goal of the season. Karlsson took a pass from behind the net by Reilly Smith and then beat Campbell with a backhand shot on his glove side.
A little over a minute after Lehner stopped Ondrej Kase's short-handed breakaway try, Pietrangelo tied the contest with a five-on-three power play goal at 11:48. His wrist shot from the right circle went past a Karlsson screen and Campbell's blocker side for his sixth goal of the season.
--Field Level Media
Toronto | Vegas | |
Auston Matthews 1 | Points | William Karlsson 1 |
Auston Matthews 1 | Goals | William Karlsson 1 |
Michael Bunting 1 | Assists | Evgenii Dadonov 1 |
N/A | Power Play Goals | Keegan Kolesar 1 |
N/A | Short Handed Goals | N/A |
Jack Campbell .912 | Save Percentage | Robin Lehner .833 |
Jack Campbell 31 | Saves | Robin Lehner 15 |
Team | Shots | Goals | Power Play | Penalty Kill | Penalty Mins | Face Offs Won |
Toronto | 18 | 4 | 0-2 | 3-5 | 10 | 33 |
Vegas | 34 | 3 | 2-5 | 2-2 | 4 | 31 |