NHL Roundup: Avs outlast Isles, Tyler Toffoli knocks off Oilers, Auston Matthews hits 40 goals, and more
Anthony Scultore
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NHL Roundup for Monday, March 7, 2022 recaps all 5 games on the calendar.
We start on Long Island, where Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar put on a show to help the Colorado Avalanche edge the New York Islanders to add to their league leading point totals. Also, Tyler Toffoli continues to shine for the Calgary Flames since his trade from the Canadiens. Plus Auston Matthews hits the 40 goal mark for the 4th time in his 6-year career.
Avalanche 5, Islanders 4
Nathan MacKinnon scored the tiebreaking goal 4:06 into the third period as Colorado scored four times in a span of 4:21 before holding on for a victory over New York in Elmont, N.Y.
Cale Makar finished with two goals and an assist, extending his assists streak to 12 games, matching the franchise record set by current general manager Joe Sakic in 1992. J.T. Compher and former Islander Devon Toews also scored for the Avalanche, who had lost their previous two games, just their third losing streak of the season.
“I thought those guys led the way for sure,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We were talking this morning about how Cale hadn’t scored in a while, but both of those guys, not just their shots, but just real good awareness. If they had a shot, they took it. They were dangerous on the interior of the ice, and if they didn’t like it, they were dishing it off to someone else who was putting themselves in a scoring position.
Anders Lee scored his second power-play goal of the game with 8:02 remaining and Casey Cizikas struck 90 seconds later to cut the deficit to 5-3.
Kings 3, Bruins 2 (OT)
The Los Angeles Kings scored in the final minute of regulation and again in overtime to record a come-from-behind, 3-2 win over the host Boston Bruins on Monday night.
Andreas Athanasiou moved ahead on a partial breakaway to score an unassisted winning goal at 1:53 of the extra session.
Trevor Moore scored a game-tying, extra-attacker goal with 26 seconds left in regulation, following up Arthur Kaliyev’s long shot through traffic. Blake Lizotte also scored for Los Angeles, which finished a four-game road trip with its third consecutive victory.
Trent Frederic and Craig Smith scored goals for Boston, while third-line center Charlie Coyle had the primary assist on each. Smith added an assist on the opening goal for a multi-point game.
Flames 3, Oilers 1
Tyler Toffoli scored a pair of second-period goals as Pacific Division-leading Calgary continued its blazing-hot run with a victory over visiting Edmonton.
“It was just a really important game for us,” Toffoli said. “And I thought we did a good job of containing their top guys and, obviously, ‘Marky’ made some big saves at the right time. I thought we just did a really good job overall in not really letting them get to their game as much as they probably wanted to.”
Johnny Gaudreau added a goal and an assist, while Jacob Markstrom had 27 saves as Calgary earned a point in its fifth consecutive game (4-0-1). The Flames improved to 16-2-1 since Jan. 24, and they are 12-0-1 in their past 13 home games.
Devin Shore scored a goal and Mikko Koskinen had 26 saves as the Oilers lost their third consecutive game (0-2-1). Edmonton is 2-5-1 following a five-game winning streak that came immediately after former coach Dave Tippett was fired.
Panthers 6, Sabres 1
Aleksander Barkov had a goal and two assists and Mason Marchment produced three assists as visiting Florida beat Buffalo for its third win in a row.
Brandon Montour and Anthony Duclair each had a goal and an assist for the Panthers. Noel Acciari, Carter Verhaeghe, and Patric Hornqvist scored Florida’s other goals, and Spencer Knight stopped 29 of 30 shots.
John Hayden had Buffalo’s goal, and Craig Anderson made 25 saves. The Sabres were only outshot by a 31-30 margin, but they went scoreless on five power-play opportunities.
Maple Leafs 5, Blue Jackets 4
Alexander Kerfoot and Michael Bunting scored in the third period and visiting Toronto held on to defeat Columbus, which had overcome a 3-0 deficit to tie the game.
Mitchell Marner, Auston Matthews and Bunting each had a goal and an assist for the Maple Leafs, who had lost their past two games. Ilya Mikheyev also scored a goal and TJ Brodie added two assists. Petr Mrazek made 31 saves for the win.
For Matthews it was his third goal in the last two games which brings his totals to 40 lead the NHL’s Rocket Richard Race.
“The start that we had was really positive,” Matthews said. “We let them back in the game, but I thought our bench and our team as a whole just stayed poised and confident and we just kept playing and scored a couple of big goals to give ourselves a lead.”
Sean Kuraly, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Jack Roslovic and Patrik Laine scored for Columbus. Max Domi and Gustav Nyquist each had two assists, and Elvis Merzlikins stopped 28 shots.
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–Field Level Media contributed to this report