Maple Leafs' offence fuels overtime rally to spoil Keefe's return to Toronto

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Sheldon Keefe has seen this before at Scotiabank Arena.

Only this time, on Thursday night, he couldn’t appreciate the Maple Leafs scoring their way out of self-inflicted trouble with a 4-3 overtime win over the New Jersey Devils.

Two third-period goals by Auston Matthews pushed the ex-coach’s return to overtime, where William Nylander won it for the Leafs 70 seconds in, ending Toronto’s season-high three-game losing streak.

Matthews’ second goal, on which Mitch Marner earned his 700th career NHL point, was a snap under Jacob Markstrom’s crossbar with little room to shoot and just 4:13 to play in regulation.

Matthews now has 21 career goals in 21 games against the Devils.

Marner then set up the dagger with a stretch pass that sent Nylander in alone on Jacob Markstrom, beating the Devils goalie cleanly to the stick side.

It was the Leafs’ first test without injured diesel-digger John Tavares for at least the next three games and Keefe’s first time back after nine years in the Toronto orbit before a series of playoff failures caught up with him.

Craig Berube was commissioned to create a better defence, but likely wasn’t counting on stretches such as this.

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The Leafs put 40-plus pucks on net and rallied from a goal down when Matthews drew a third-period tripping call , then tied it on his 99th career power-play goal, a small victory for the struggling five-forward unit.

But Nico Hischier’s second with the man advantage, both with defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the box, restored the lead.

Minus Tavares, Toronto craved early momentum for its re-jigged lines, which included the return of Max Pacioretty and Pontus Holmberg.

But the Devils had the initial opportunities and jumped on a huge coverage error before the game was three minutes old.

After David Kampf knocked Jack Hughes down in a defensive zone faceoff, Philippe Myers lost track of the Devils star behind an aborted Leafs break-out and Jersey’s leading scorer had all day to deke Joseph Woll.

Max Domi, playing in Tavares’ spot between Bobby McMann and Nylander, brought some gusto and forechecking, eventually leading to a second-period goal. He retrieved a puck, beat defenceman Johnathan Kovacevic and fed Nylander for his 25th of the year, collecting his 300th NHL assist in the process.

But that tie lasted as long as the Devils’ first full power play. Hischier went far side on Woll through defender Conor Timmins, a rare instance of the penalty kill giving up goals in consecutive matches.

While the Leafs did have 10 first-period shots on Markstrom, their five forwards stumbled out of the gate. Marner and Nylander couldn’t relay the puck at the point and Marner was forced to take a hooking call on Hischier’s breakaway.

Matthew Knies was in alone twice in the first two periods, running out of room on the first and flat-out denied by Markstrom on a backhand in the second. He was down for a few moments after that when Timo Meier steered him hard into Woll’s right post. . 

Lhornby@postmedia.com 

X: @sunhornby