William Nylander and Mitch Marner each had a goal and an assist and the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the visiting Montreal Canadiens 4-1 on Saturday night.
Conor Timmins and John Tavares also scored for the Maple Leafs, who have won three in a row and four straight at home. Toronto goaltender Joseph Woll made 20 saves.
Brendan Gallagher scored for the Canadiens, who lost their sixth straight. Montreal goaltender Sam Montembeault stopped 23 shots.
The teams have split their two meetings so far this season.
Timmins shook off Montreal’s Josh Anderson with a spin move near the boards and scored his first goal of the season at 14:55 of the first period. His shot from the right circle deflected off Montreal’s Christian Dvorak. Simon Benoit and Ryan Reaves earned the assists.
Toronto’s Max Pacioretty (left leg) left the game late in the first period and was helped to the dressing room. He did not return. Montreal had only two shots on the goal in the opening period while Toronto took seven.
Nylander scored his 11th goal when he finished a solo rush with a 24-foot wrist shot on the power play at 5:39 of the second period. Kaiden Guhle was off for holding. Matthew Knies and Morgan Rielly earned assists.
Each team scored a goal while Toronto’s Jake McCabe was serving an interference penalty in the second period.
Marner scored his fourth of the season at 8:24 with a short-handed effort to extend his point streak to eight games. Gallagher answered by batting in a rebound from five feet at 9:26 after a shot by Emil Heineman for his seventh goal of the season.
Toronto scored on its fifth consecutive power play when Tavares shot home his own rebound at 12:15 of the second with Joel Armia off for tripping. It was Tavares’ eighth goal of the season.
Toronto’s Auston Matthews (upper-body injury) was placed on injured reserve on Friday.
Montreal won the first game of the season between the teams 1-0 on Oct. 9 at home.
–Field Level Media
