TORONTO (AP) — David Kampf took a lucky carom off the end boards and scored with 1:20 left in the third period to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night.
As Chicago goalie Kevin Lankinen went behind his net to stop Morgan Rielly’s shot into the zone, the puck bounced to Kampf, who scored an easy goal against his former team. Lankinen gave up five goals on 26 shots.
William Nylander had a goal and two assists, John Tavares and Auston Matthews each had a goal and an assist and Pierre Engvall also scored for Toronto, which won for the second time in five games without injured forward Mitch Marner.
Toronto’s Petr Mrazek made 31 saves in his first start since being sidelined with a groin injury on Oct. 30.
Jonathan Toews, Connor Murphy, Dominik Kubalik and Jake McCabe scored for the Blackhawks.
Blackhawks interim head coach Derek King made his first appearance behind an NHL bench in Toronto. He scored 45 goals in 161 games for the Maple Leafs in the late 1990s. He also spent six seasons as an assistant coach with the AHL Toronto Marlies before moving to the Blackhawks organization.
The Maple Leafs blew a 4-1 lead and fired only three shots on goal in the middle 20 minutes. Chicago cut into the lead near the end of the second period. Then Kubalik scored early in the third period, and McCabe scored on drive with 9:18 remaining in regulation time.
Marner (shoulder), Jason Spezza (suspension), Travis Dermott (shoulder) and Rasmus Sandin (knee) missed the victory for Toronto.
Chicago grabbed an early 1-0 lead when Maple Leafs rookie defenseman Kristians Rubins got caught and his teammates were slow to cover for him. The result was Toews scoring his second of the season off the rush. It took him 26 games to score his first goal of the campaign in Montreal on Thursday after missing the entire 2020-21 season with chronic immune response syndrome.
The Maple Leafs then struck for three goals, two on the power play, to earn a 3-1 lead after the first period.
Tavares scored on a soft wrist shot Lankinen misplayed on the power play. Nylander went unchecked by Blackhawks center Kirby Dach and knocked in a pass from behind the goal line from Tavares.
Matthews deposited a pass from Ondrej Kase on the power play to make it 3-1. After his two-goal outing against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, Kase was elevated to the right side of Matthews on the top line.
The fourth line increased Toronto’s lead to 4-1 early in the second period on a wrist shot from Engvall. Rookie Alex Steeves picked up the second assist on the goal for his first career point in his third game.
Chicago's Murphy scored on a wrist shot off Mrazek, 10 seconds after an interference penalty to Toronto’s Michael Bunting had expired.
Early in the third period, Chicago forward Philipp Kurashev outraced two Toronto defenders to slap the puck to a wide-open Kubalik to pull the Blackhawks to within 4-3.
UP NEXT
Blackhawks: Host Calgary on Monday in the first of a three-game homestand.
Maple Leafs: At Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday in opener of a four-game trip.
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