Maple Leafs rally late but lose in shootout to Sharks
William Nylander and John Tavares tied it with goals in the final minute of regulation, but the Toronto Maple Leafs lost 6-5 in a shootout to the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Thursday.
Tavares cut it to 5-4 with 59 seconds remaining when he deflected Mitch Marner’s shot from the point over Alexandar Georgiev’s blocker. Nylander then scored his second of the game from the right hash marks with 14 seconds left to tie it 5-5.
Both goals came with Joseph Woll on the bench for the extra skater.
“It was great to compete right to the end, find a way to earn a point,” Tavares said. “[We] had plenty of opportunities to win that game in extra time. We got to find a little more consistency here.”
Auston Matthews had a goal and an assist, and Marner had three assists for the Maple Leafs (43-25-4), who have lost two of three (1-1-1). Woll made 30 saves.
Toronto leads the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning by one point for first in the Atlantic Division. Florida has one game in hand.
“We did a great job at the end of the game to get a point. We had a lot of good looks in OT that didn’t go in,” Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said. “We didn’t play well in the first period.”
Tyler Toffoli had two goals and an assist, and William Eklund had a goal and an assist for the Sharks (20-42-9), who hadn’t played since a 3-1 win against the Boston Bruins on Saturday. Georgiev made 30 saves.
“I loved our start. [That] was one of our better games,” San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “I know five goals, it looks a little ugly, but it was one of our more complete games as far as our effort, our energy, and then our structure.”
Toffoli gave the Sharks a 1-0 lead at 7:50 of the first period. Lucas Carlsson’s initial cross-crease pass for Toffoli was blocked by Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Carlsson then shot on Woll, who was out of position from the attempted pass, and the rebound dropped in the crease, where Toffoli scored past the prone goaltender.
“I thought we worked for [bounces], I don’t think it was necessarily like a lucky bounce or anything like that,” Toffoli said. “I thought we did a really good job of, I mean, sounds cliche, but recovering and forechecking hard and just having good sticks. When you do things like that, good things are going to happen.”
Nylander tied the game 1-1 with a power-play goal at 14:40. Matthew Knies lifted the stick of Vincent Desharnais and quickly spun and put a shot on goal. The rebound then kicked out to Nylander, who scored into an open net at the right of the crease.
Nylander has 42 goals this season, an NHL career high.
Collin Graf put the Sharks back in front 2-1 with a short-handed goal at 17:45. Graf skated in on a rush and cut between two defenders into the slot, where he scored with a wrist shot that beat Woll over his blocker.
Alexander Wennberg extended the lead to 3-1 at 1:39 of the second period. He skated down the right wing on a 2-on-1 and scored with a wrist shot that trickled under Woll’s blocker.
It was the 100th NHL goal for Wennberg, who hadn’t scored since Dec. 14 (32 games).
“Yeah, about time,” Wennberg said. “It feels great. It’s been a while, but it’s nice to see the puck go in. This is something I’ll bring home and take with me.”
Matthews cut the lead to 3-2 with a power-play goal at 4:46, jamming in a rebound after Marner’s shot from the point got behind Georgiev.
Eklund made it 4-2 at 13:18. Woll stopped the puck on a dump-in, but his intended clearing pass hit off Eklund’s skate and deflected five-hole into the net.
Scott Laughton made it 4-3 at 15:13, scoring with a one-timer from the point that beat Georgiev over his glove. It was Laughton’s first goal in 10 games with Toronto since being acquired in a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers on March 7.
“It was nice for my own confidence,” Laughton said. “It was nice to get one, for sure, but it would’ve been a lot nicer to get a win and not score.”
Toffoli pushed it to 5-3 with a power-play goal at 3:02 of the third period. He scored from the bottom of the left circle off a cross-crease pass from Eklund.
