Mitch Marner on Wednesday scored 19 seconds into overtime as the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the New York Rangers 3-2 in a matchup of Eastern Conference contenders.
Pontus Holmberg scored early, while Timothy Liljegren had a goal and an assist for the Maple Leafs (30-11-8).
Ilya Samsonov stopped 27 shots and improved to 14-0-1 at home, further cementing his place in Toronto’s crease ahead of Matt Murray.
Photo: AP
“Dialed,” teammate William Nylander said. “On top of his game.”
Filip Chytil scored twice for New York (26-14-8), while Igor Shesterkin made 32 saves.
“We played real well in a tough building with a real good team against us,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “I want the two points, but we’ll take the one and run.”
Marner weaved his way past all three Rangers skaters in the three-on-three extra period after Toronto won the face-off at center ice. He cut hard across the crease and tucked his 18th goal of the season past an outstretched Shesterkin.
“Tried to slow the play down, see if anything was going to open up,” Marner said. “Saw I had my own little lane and tried to take it.”
Chytil got New York even 1-1 at 2 minutes, 10 seconds of the second period on a sneaky face-off play.
The Rangers’ center squared off against David Kampf on an offensive zone draw, but instead of trying to win the puck back to a teammate, he fired it toward a surprised Samsonov with a shot through the pads for his 14th goal.
“Gotta give it to him,” Nylander said. “Haven’t seen that in a long time.”
Samsonov was not in the mood to discuss the play.
“I had a lot of positive moments,” he said. “[Chytil] won the lottery.”
Chytil then gave the Rangers — who beat Toronto 3-1 at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 15 last year — their first lead at 6:31 when Kaapo Kakko sent a slick pass to his linemate for him to snap home his second of the night.
New York had a terrific chance to go up 3-1 on a power play early in the third, but Chris Kreider flubbed a sure goal at the side of Samsonov’s net.
Toronto started to push as the period wore on and finally beat Shesterkin, who won the Vezina Trophy last season as the NHL’s top netminder, when Liljegren scored his fourth with 4:11 left on a broken play.
“The Rangers did a good job of shutting us down, but we kept pushing,” Liljegren said.
Nylander assisted on the goal for his 400th career point.
“We stepped on the gas a little bit,” Nylander said. “Got some offensive zone time and got some dirty pucks to the net.”
John Tavares hit the crossbar with a shot in the waning seconds of regulation for Toronto.
The Maple Leafs jumped out to a 1-0 lead 2:27 into the first — a chunk of the late-arriving crowd had yet to take their seats due to a winter storm that blanketed Toronto — when Holmberg moved in alone on Shesterkin and backhanded in his fifth of the campaign.
Samsonov made his best stop of the period five minutes before the intermission with a desperation stick save on K’Andre Miller in tight.
The Russian beat countryman Ilya Sorokin 5-2 on Monday when the New York Islanders were in town and duplicated the trick against another standout goaltender from his homeland 48 hours later.
“Great battle with him,” Samsonov said of Shesterkin. “A little bit bigger game for me than normal.”
Elsewhere, the Kraken crushed the Canucks 6-1, the Senators sank the Islanders 2-1, the Blue Jackets beat the Oilers 3-2 in overtime and the Hurricanes outshone the Stars 3-2 in overtime.
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