Maple Leafs rally to end skid in OT, deny Blackhawks first win

CHICAGO -- William Nylander scored on a breakaway at 1:58 of overtime, and the Toronto Maple Leafs handed the Chicago Blackhawks their seventh straight loss to start the season, 3-2 at United Center on Wednesday.

John Tavares and former Chicago forward David Kampf scored, and Jack Campbell made 27 saves for Toronto (3-4-1), which had lost four in a row.
"It hasn't been looking too pretty the last few nights," Nylander said. "Tonight, I think we got closer to where we want to be, but not fully there yet."
The Maple Leafs, who completed a three-game road trip, were outscored 11-2 in the first two, losing 7-1 at the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday and 4-1 at the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday.
Kirby Dach and Alex DeBrincat scored, and Kevin Lankinen made 37 saves for Chicago (0-5-2), which led 2-0 in the first period.
"We battled but didn't kill the game when we had our chances," Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton said. "... In the beginning of the third (period), that power play we hit a couple of posts. They played hard, didn't get rewarded with two points."
Following the first period, Maple Leafs players spoke up in the locker room.

"A couple guys stepped up," Campbell said. "I think that got us [ticked] off. I know me, personally, I wasn't happy whatsoever with my game hard as they possibly could the rest of the way, and we got the win." in the first period. Not my game plan. I knew I owed the team better than that. The guys stepped up, every single one of them and played as
Dach gave Chicago its first lead of the season when he made it 1-0 on the power play at 5:44 of the first period. After taking a pass from Philipp Kurashev, Dach moved into the slot against Jake Muzzin and scored on the forehand.
DeBrincat made it 2-0 at 11:48 after taking a stretch pass at the blue line from Seth Jones and driving in on Campbell.
"I think we did a lot of good things, gave ourselves a chance to win," Colliton said. "I liked our start, liked our energy. We played a very mature game. Moving pucks ahead, really good post support, hard forechecking, found ways to force turnovers and created offense. Thought we were good defensively."
Tavares cut it to 2-1 at 6:14 of the second period. He took a pass in the slot from Mitchell Marner and scored with a backhand over the left shoulder of Lankinen.
Kampf tied it 2-2 at 12:31 of the third period. It was his first game against the Blackhawks since signing with the Maple Leafs as a free agent July 28 after playing his first four NHL seasons with Chicago.

"It feels good for us," Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. "We've been through a lot here on this road trip. Some of it's self-inflicted, but still nonetheless, mentally it's been a lot. To get two points going home feels good, for sure. There are a lot of things that we still need to clean up. Tonight, at the end of a long road trip with the way things have gone, we fought. We got a great goal from Kampf. That line really worked to get us that goal. To find a way to get the second point, that's big for us."
Blackhawks forward Tyler Johnson said the loss was deflating.
"I think there were still moments we got back to playing too cute of hockey and not making those simple plays, making chips with speed, forechecking hard," he said. "That should be our team's strength. When we play that way, we play really well. We got away from that a little bit. Toronto's a good, skilled team, and they were able to put the puck in the net. It's a step forward, not anywhere close to where we want to be, but we have to keep moving forward."
NOTES: Nylander scored the fifth overtime goal of his NHL career, all with the Maple Leafs. Five players in their history have scored more: Mats Sundin (14), Tomas Kaberle (seven), Auston Matthews (seven), Wendel Clark (six) and Steve Thomas (six). … Blackhawks center Jonathan Toews had one shot, one hit and one blocked shot in 18:03 of ice time after being removed from NHL COVID-19 protocol Wednesday. Forwards
Patrick Kane
,
Jujhar Khaira
, and Henrik Borgstrom, and defenseman
Riley Stillman
remain in protocol.