Landeskog scores twice, Avalanche pull away from Maple Leafs in third period

Gabriel Landeskog scored twice, including the tie-breaking goal at 5:02 of the third period, for the Colorado Avalanche in a 6-3 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday.

Landeskog scored from outside the left of the crease with a redirect of Nazem Kadri’s cross-crease pass from below the goal line, putting Colorado up 4-3 just 51 seconds after the Maple Leafs tied the game 3-3.

“We always talk about responding,” Landeskog said. “Whether you score, you’ve got to follow it up. Whether they score, you’ve got to follow it up. Those shifts are big no doubt and we were able to get rewarded for one there. Even if you don’t get rewarded you want to leave some momentum in the offensive zone. That one worked out and we ended up scoring.”

Landeskog was left open in front of the net after John Tavares, Jake McCabe and Darren Raddysh all moved towards Kadri.

“That was beautiful,” Landeskog said. “There wasn’t much I had to do. I just stopped back post, the coverage left me and ‘Naz’ just made a great play.”

“We make multiple poor decisions,” Toronto coach Jim Hiller said. “Multiple. That’s usually how hockey works. Sometimes you make a bad decision and hopefully somebody cleans it up. If you make one, two, three poor decisions in a row, veteran players, can’t have it. You just can’t have it. That’s how you lose.”

Devon Toews had a goal and an assist, Cale Makar had two assists, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 28 saves for the Avalanche (11-6-2), who have points in six of their past seven games (5-1-1).

“I think it’s as close as you can get (to a 60-minute effort),” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We just had to keep playing it behind them and then we caught a break. That’s kind of what happened. But everyone was playing hard and doing the right things. There was a lot of good banter on the bench, good talk on the bench with what we need to do and some of the things that we’ve been talking about. So, it’s good.”

Raddysh, Roslovic and Easton Cowan each had a goal and an assist and Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves for the Maple Leafs (8-10-2), who have lost four in a row. Bobrovsky has lost each of his past five starts, allowing three or more goals in each game.

“You definitely don’t want to be in it but it is what it is so one shot I am focused on the moment and the things that I can control and try to give the best chance for the team to win,” Bobrovsky said. “I feel you can overthink easily and put yourself in a hole. You have to cut it off and put that behind you and move to the next level.”

Artturi Lehkonen made it 5-3 at 17:15 of the third period when he took a pass from Makar on a breakaway after a change and shot between Bobrovsky’s pads from the slot. Martin Necas shot into an empty net at 17:30 for the 6-3 final.

The Maple Leafs went up 1-0 at 3:33 of the first period when Raddysh one-timed a pass from Auston Matthews over Blackwood’s blocker from above the left face-off circle. The goal was his first with the Maple Leafs in his 20th game after being acquired in a sign-and-trade from the Tampa Bay Lightning on June 19.

“It was good,” Raddysh said. “I’ve had a few chances here and there to shoot it and to see one finally go in is good but at the end of the day we don’t win so that’s a bigger thing for me.”

Brock Nelson tied it 1-1 at 16:09 when he took a chip pass from T.J. Hughes to put him in alone on Bobrovsky and shot between his pads.

The Avalanche went up 2-1 at 17:26 when Landeskog jammed in a rebound after Nicolas Roy drove to the net.

Toews made it 3-1 at 3:31 of the second period when his shot from the point through traffic in front beat Bobrovsky to the blocker side.

Cowan cut it to 3-2 at 19:31 on the power play. After taking a pass from Gavin McKenna, Cowan stepped towards the net and shot short side from below the right face-off dot.

Roslovic held off Colorado’s Brett Kulak on a breakaway to get to the net and push a backhand five-hole on Blackwood to tie the game 3-3 at 4:11 of the third period.

“I felt like we had full team engagement, No. 1,” Bednar said. “Everyone was playing hard, defending hard. You know, we’ve been talking about that a lot. Getting some good looks on the offensive side, so I think the belief was there. Then we build that lead and it kind of slips away on us, but obviously huge shift and huge goal by Landeskog, Roy and Kadri right after that to get us the lead again… I thought real good overall effort from our team on both sides of the puck. To start a road trip off with a big win is nice.”