Mitch Marner and William Nylander scored 20 seconds apart with under nine minutes to go in the third period, moments after Dallas equalized as the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Stars 5-4 on Wednesday night.
Toronto could become tentative having surrendered a lead despite dominating the third period. Or continue to push — not press — for the winner."We just wanted to get back to work," Marner said."Our bench does a good job of staying in the moment, realizing there's another opportunity to go out there and do something."Huge response from Matty and Mitchy," Nylander said."We were able to follow that up.
"Each game is gonna present its own challenges," Matthews said."There's gonna be different momentum swings out there. We try to stay focused and present.""We made a mistake," Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said."We were playing a great period to that point. Just continue with it. Stay with it." "It's not too hard," the sniper said when asked about the challenge of returning to a regular-season routine."You're pretty thankful that it's back to what you're accustomed to."
Dallas, which fell to 7-2-1 over its last 10, connected on its second power-play opportunity when Benn scored his ninth at 14:52.Johnston then nearly made it 3-1 in the dying seconds, but Samsonov was bailed out by his left post for a second time in the period.