Marner scores four goals, six points, Maple Leafs hold off Red Wings

Mitchell Marner set NHL career highs with four goals and six points to help the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 10-7 win against the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on Saturday.

Marner scored his first NHL hat trick, and Michael Bunting scored an NHL career-high five points with one goal and an assist on each of Marner's goals.
"I won't lie, that was pretty cool," Marner said. "I had a couple hat tricks in juniors, and I've had chances in the NHL, but I hadn't gotten one. I tried to stay calm when the third one went in, but it was a cool moment."
Marner scored two goals in an NHL game 14 times, including twice this month (Feb. 1 vs. New Jersey Devils, Feb. 7 vs. Carolina Hurricanes).

The 17 goals were the most in an NHL game since the Winnipeg Jets defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 9-8 on Oct. 27, 2011.
"I don't know if I can even put that into words," said Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews, who scored a goal with three assists. "I've never played in a game like that."
Toronto led 7-2 after two periods, but Detroit got within 7-6 and 8-7 in the third period.
"That was exciting for the fans, but it is fool's gold for a coach, because what happened out there wasn't good enough," Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "It wasn't close to being good enough."
The Red Wings tied their record with seven goals in a loss. They did it five times previously, most recently on Feb. 24, 1993, 10-7 to the Buffalo Sabres.
"I've never been a part of anything like that," said Red Wings defenseman Marc Staal, who played his 994th NHL game. "It was crazy to score all those goals and be back in a game where we had been that bad for two periods."
Toronto (34-14-4) won its second straight game after losing three in a row. Jack Campbell allowed five goals on 25 shots before being replaced in the third period by Petr Mrazek, who made six saves.
"The craziness of the third period is going to be the focus of the night, but our guys deserve some attention for playing a really good game," Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. "In a game like that, you are just looking to get out of there in the third period, and things changed in a hurry."
Filip Hronek had a goal and three assists for Detroit (23-24-6), which lost for the third time in four games. Alex Nedeljkovic allowed three goals on 13 shots in 11:06 before being replaced by Thomas Greiss, who allowed four goals on 14 shots. Nedeljkovic returned for the third period.
"We got down 3-0 right off the bat, so I made a change to try to get something going," Blashill said. "When [Greiss] gives up four more, I decided to go back to [Nedeljkovic] because he hasn't played much recently because of the schedule."

Toronto led 3-1 in the first period before Marner scored a natural hat trick on Greiss in the first 9:19 of the second period. Matthews and Bunting assisted on each one.
"That line was pretty much unstoppable tonight," Keefe said. "It was great to see Mitch getting some goals and heating up like that."
William Nylander gave the Maple Leafs a 1-0 lead at 3:52 of the first period with his 20th goal of the season, and Bunting made it 2-0 at 6:18.
Lucas Raymond pulled Detroit within 2-1 at 10:33, scoring on a rebound off a Staal point shot.
David Kampf tipped in an Ilya Mikheyev shot at 11:06 for a 3-1 lead.
Marner made it 4-1 at 33 seconds of the second period, scored again at 4:13 to put Toronto up 5-1, and completed the hat trick in a span of 8:46 to make it 6-1 at 9:19.

Sam Gagner brought Detroit within 6-2 at 13:47.
Matthews scored his NHL-leading 37th goal at 18:38 to give the Maple Leafs a 7-2 lead.
"We were great in the first two periods, that was one of our best starts of the year," Bunting said. "We were hounding them, creating chances and scoring goals."
Hronek cut it to 7-3 at 35 seconds of the third period, Carter Rowney made it 7-4 at 2:09, and Joe Veleno brought the Red Wings within 7-5 at 4:42. Mrazek replaced Campbell, and Michael Rasmussen tipped in a shot to make it 7-6 at 5:21.

Mikheyev made it 8-6 at 7:04.
Raymond scored his second of the game at 7:45 to cut it to 8-7.
Ondrej Kase made it 9-7 with a shorthanded goal at 10:33, and Marner scored his fourth at 15:41 for the 10-7 final.
"That whole period was crazy," Matthews said.
NOTES:Two Maple Leafs have scored more points in a game than Marner. Darryl Sittler scored 10 (six goals, four assists) on Feb. 7, 1976 and seven (three goals, four assists) on Oct. 14, 1978; and Corb Denneny scored seven (six goals, one assist) on Jan. 26, 1921. … The Maple Leafs had scored 10 goals in a game 34 times, once since 1997-98, on Jan. 4, 2007 against the Boston Bruins (10-2). Their most is 14 against the New York Rangers on March 16, 1957 (14-1). … The Red Wings had allowed 10 goals in a game 26 times, twice since 1992-93, most recently Dec. 2, 2017 to the Montreal Canadiens (10-1). Their most is 13 to the Maple Leafs on Jan. 2, 1971 (13-0). … Nylander has scored at least 20 goals in four NHL seasons. … Bunting is the ninth Maple Leafs rookie to score five points in a game, the first in the NHL expansion era (since 1967-68). … Maple Leafs forward Nick Robertson had three shots in 9:19 in his season debut after being recalled from Toronto of the American Hockey League on Friday. … Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin had an assist to extend his point streak to nine games (17 points; six goals, 11 assists). … Moritz Seider had two assists and has scored 10 points (one goal, nine assists) in a six-game point streak. He is tied with Reed Larson (1977-78) for the longest point streak by a Red Wings rookie defenseman. … The Maple Leafs did not have a power play. The Red Wings were 0-for-3.