Coyotes top Maple Leafs on Gostisbehere late goal for first win

TORONTO -- Shayne Gostisbehere scored the tiebreaking goal on the power play with 1:33 remaining in the third period, and the Arizona Coyotes defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 at Scotiabank Arena on Monday.

Gostisbehere one-timed a pass from Clayton Keller at the right face-off dot to put Arizona ahead 3-2 shortly after Justin Holl missed an opportunity to clear the puck out of the zone.
"It was just a breakdown, and I knew Keller was going to pass it to me," Gostisbehere said. "It was just a matter of when he froze that goalie enough for me to slide it in.
"We know the perception of our team outside this rink. We're not the traditional hockey market, and we know there's a bunch of stuff going on with our rink, and we're obviously in a rebuild, but we're coming in here to play every night. I told our team on our team-bonding trip, 'Who cares about the noise? What matters is the guys in this locker room, and we can get better every day and surprise some teams some nights.' It didn't look like we were tanking out there tonight if you ask me."

The Maple Leafs thought they tied the game with 39 seconds left, but the goal was disallowed after the situation room determined there was a missed game-stoppage because of a hand pass. Lawson Crouse then made it 4-2 at 19:49 when he shot into an empty net.
Karel Vejmelka made 26 saves for the Coyotes (1-2-0), who had allowed 12 goals in their first two games.
"Pressure, I think that's the big thing," Coyotes forward Christian Fischer said. "In the third period, you give [Auston] Matthews, [Mitchell] Marner, [William] Nylander, I could go on and on, you give those guys space, they're going to kill you. They're going to make plays and score goals. Then you start chasing them and drag them down [and they] get some power plays. You don't want to go against that power play too many times. A lot of lessons to be learned. I think the best thing we did was put pressure on them, and that's exactly what we didn't do in the third and it almost cost us."
Nylander and Marner scored, and Erik Kallgren made 15 saves for the Maple Leafs (2-2-0) in his season debut after being recalled from Toronto of the American Hockey League on Saturday.
"Inconsistent," Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly said. "Early on there was times where we had the puck a lot, and about halfway through the game we kind of went into a lull and we didn't have much going on and they controlled the play for the most part, and then we seemed to find our game again. If you look at the first period, we had the puck a lot, (but) we didn't generate a ton from the interior."
Nick Ritchie gave the Coyotes a 1-0 lead at 19:34 of the first period when he redirected a pass in the slot from Gostisbehere on the power play.
Fischer made it 2-0 at 8:32. Nick Bjugstad won a battle for a loose puck against Rielly behind the net and passed to Fischer, who was at the top of the crease.
Nylander cut the lead to 2-1 on the power play at 12:54 of the third period. John Tavares' shot from the high slot hit Josh Brown, and Nylander shot past Vejmelka's glove from below the left hash marks.
Marner tied it 2-2 at 13:18. Troy Stecher, who was behind the net, attempted to pass to J.J. Moser in the slot, but he mishandled the puck and Marner scored with a backhand in the slot.
"We competed hard, and we scored a big [go-ahead] goal," Arizona coach Andre Tourigny said. "When you're under pressure like that and you lose the momentum, it can be tough mentally, and our guys were resilient. Really happy about the way it happened on the bench. We had leadership, guys who stood up and talked, so that was good."

Toronto went 1-for-5 on the power play, generating just two shots on goal while allowing two power-play goals.
"Special teams obviously an issue, and I thought as the game went on, they gained confidence and our team got frustrated and lost its way," Keefe said.
"We didn't adapt, we didn't score [on] special teams. It's an area to improve, a lot of areas to improve, and we're only four games in. Our best people have not found their rhythm. The difference between us and Arizona is we have elite players. Our elite players didn't play like elite players today, couldn't make a difference, so in that sense, the game is going to be close."
NOTES: Maple Leafs defenseman Jake Muzzin left the game with a neck injury at 11:03 of the second period following a collision with Keller. Keefe had no update after the game. … The Coyotes announced prior to the game that center Nick Schmaltz will be out 6-8 weeks with an upper-body injury. ... Tavares' assist on Nylander's goal was his 900th NHL point.