Aho stays hot, Hurricanes edge Maple Leafs

Sebastian Aho had a goal and two assists for the Carolina Hurricanes in a 3-2 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday.

Aho has 11 points (two goals, nine assists) in his past three games, which included four assists in a 5-3 win at the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday and one goal and three assists in a 5-2 win against the Nashville Predators on Wednesday.

“Definitely probably my best stretch in three games, especially in my NHL career,” Aho said. “I don’t know if I had something like this going on in juniors, but it’s been good. It’s nice to produce, but obviously winning three in a row now, that’s great.”

Michael Bunting and Seth Jarvis scored, and Andrei Svechnikov had two assists for the Hurricanes (20-13-4). Pyotr Kochetkov made 25 saves.

“We’re just really desperate right now,” Jarvis said. “We know how tight our division is, and we know how everything can change so quickly. We don’t want to be outside looking in come playoff time, so we’re just trying to get as many points as we can right now and make sure we give ourselves the best chance possible.”

Timothy Liljegren had a goal and an assist, and Martin Jones made 25 saves for the Maple Leafs, (17-10-7), who have lost three straight (0-2-1) and five of their past six (1-4-1).

“Frustrations are a useless emotion,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “I don’t get caught up in that. We just got to keep playing and keep going. Guys played a good game. It’s a tough back-to-back (Toronto lost 6-5 in overtime to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday) against a very good team that doesn’t give you an inch out there. Our guys were right there. It’s another game that can go either way.”

The Maple Leafs were 0-for-3 on the power play and 2-for-4 on the penalty kill.

“It was a tight hockey game, and I thought we played pretty well, especially at even strength,” Toronto captain John Tavares said. “Special teams was big tonight. We were on the wrong end of it. Every point matters. In general, not a great week for us, only coming up with a point and not coming out of the (holiday) break the way we wanted to. Important to regroup, get back to work and know we got to bounce back and continue to build our game and obviously get the results that we need.”

Bunting put the Hurricanes up 1-0 at 2:24 of the first period with a power-play goal, one-timing a pass from Aho, who was behind the net.

Bunting was playing his first game in Toronto since signing a three-year contract with the Hurricanes on July 1.

“Any time you are able to get a quick goal there, you build some confidence going into the game, but obviously this one was special coming back home and coming back to the old team,” Bunting said. “I wanted to be an impact player right off the start, and I think I did that.”

Jarvis made it 2-0 at 13:52 of the second period when he tapped in a pass from Svechnikov on the power play after beating Mitchell Marner to the front of the net.

Liljegren cut the lead to 2-1 at 4:16 of the third period with his first goal of the season. He took a pass from Max Domi and scored from the left hash marks.

The Hurricanes penalty kill was 3-for-3, including killing off a tripping minor to Brent Burns at 10:07 of the third.

“Special teams, they were huge tonight,” Aho said. “A couple of power plays and especially at the end of a few good kills there, so they were huge.”

Aho scored an empty-net goal at 19:05 to make it 3-1 before Nicholas Robertson cut the lead to 3-2 with 10 seconds left.

“He’s playing really well right now,” Jarvis said of Aho. “His head is kind of big right now, so I’ve got to keep him humble. He’s doing great. He’s making plays all over the ice for us, not only on the stat sheet, but the stuff he does away from the puck on the penalty kill, everything like that. He’s been really effective for us.”