TORONTO — Auston Matthews scored two late goals to complete a hat trick and Mitch Marner had the lone shootout goal in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ 6-5 victory over the Montreal Canadiens.
After the Maple Leafs fought back from 2-0 and 5-3 deficits, Marner moved in on Jake Allen and fired upstairs on Toronto´s third attempt. Ilya Samsonov then stopped Kirby Dach at the other end to seal it.
Matthews scored the 300th, 301st and 302nd goals of his career for his eighth hat trick, William Nylander, with a goal and an assist, and Noah Gregor also scored in regulation for Toronto. Samsonov made 19 saves.
John Tavares had three assists for Toronto, while John Klingberg – in his first game with the Maple Leafs – chipped in with two.
Alex Newhook scored twice for Montreal. Cole Caufield, Jake Evans and Jesse Ylonen also scored, Allen stopped 37 shots, and Dach had two assists.
Matthews scored his second of the night with 4:32 left with Samsonov on the bench when he beat Allen from a tough angle. He tied it with 1:07 remaining to send Scotiabank Arena into a frenzy.
Elsewhere, Andrew Mangiapane had two goals and an assist and the Calgary Flames beat the Winnipeg Jets 5-3 in their season opener.
“A big two points,” Mangiapane said. “There was good resilience to come back and not get away from the game. Just to kick off the season with a win is huge.”
Elias Lindholm added a goal and two assists, defensemen Rasmus Andersson and MacKenzie Weegar also scored, and Jacob Markstrom made 34 saves.
“A big, big game for him and we´re going to need a lot more of those from him,” Mangiapane said about Markstrom.
Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Alex Iafallo scored for Winnipeg, with Connor Hellebuyck stopping 17 shots.
“We certainly played well enough to get at least a point out of there,” Jets coach Rick Bowness said. “It didn´t go our way tonight on a couple of things.”
Winnipeg outshot Calgary 28-14 after two periods, but trailed 3-2.
Scheifele tied it with 5:42 left, and Lindholm put the Flames back in front with 1:32 to go when he was fed by Mangiapane from behind the net. Mangiapane added an empty-netter.
David Pastrnak, meanwhile, broke a second-period tie and added an empty-netter to lift Boston past Chicago and spoil the first career NHL goal for Blackhawks rookie Connor Bedard.
Trent Frederic also scored for Boston and reigning Vezina Trophy-winner Linus Ullmark made 20 saves as the Bruins won their season opener a year after setting NHL records for wins and points but then losing in the first round of the playoffs.
Matthew Poitras, the Bruins´ top rookie, assisted on Frederic´s goal for his first career NHL point.
Arvid Soderblom stopped 32 shots for the Blackhawks, who beat Pittsburgh, with top draft pick Bedard getting an assist for his first point. The highly touted rookie scored about five minutes into the game on a wraparound that beat Ullmark and made it 1-0.
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