TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs suffered a three-goal deficit in the third period and Auston Matthews scored on a power play 13:10 in overtime to defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-3 on Friday night, the best-of- five banned qualifiers on two wins per piece.
The Leafs scored three times in 3:34 to tie the score late in a game that Columbus and goalkeeper Elvis Merzlikins had largely controlled until then. On Thursday night, the Blue Jackets had three goals down to finally win in overtime.
This time, with Nick Foligno in the penalty area on a questionable tripping call, Matthews knocked Elvis Merzlikins of the right circle out of a clean feed from John Tavares to push the series to a decisive Game 5 on Sunday.
William Nylander, Tavares and Zach Hyman scored in the third period to set up the heroes of Matthews. Frederik Andersen had 36 saves.
“Probably some of the craziest events I’ve ever seen,” Nylander said of the comeback.
Cam Atkinson, Vladislav Gavrikov and Boone Jenner scored for Columbus, and Merzlikins, who started his first playoff game, scored 49 saves.
Merzlikins and the Blue Coats seemed to be cross until the Toronto pressed in the last 4 minutes of regulation.
Then Nylander got his stick on a puck that flowed through Merzlikins’ legs with 3:57 left. 51 seconds later Tavares connected from the lock, and Hyman ripped one in the left circle to tie it with 23 seconds after Toronto had pulled the goalkeeper for an extra skater.
“We got a little CPR there, and we found ourselves back,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Here we go.”
Atkinson first got the Blue Jackets on the board. Pierre-Luc Dubois grabbed the puck in transition, rode to territory in Toronto and passed a pass to Atkinson for the tap-in to give Columbus the 3:58 lead in the game. Later in the first, Merzlikins hit a loose puck inches from the line in heavy traffic to prevent Toronto from tying it up.
Gavrikov got his first playoff goal when he fired a shot over Andersen to give Columbus a 2-0 lead 4:40 into the second period. Jenner scored another 5:42 in the third after a Toronto turnover in the Columbus zone, and the Blue Jackets apparently had the game in their hands.
“I will not dissect this,” Atkinson said. ‘They clearly wanted it more than we did. We will be ready to go on Sunday. ”
Marner picked up three assists for the Leafs, and Matthews added a few.
Matthews said the Leafs never lost their cool 3-0 late.
“I think once we get there pretty quickly, we just want to keep pushing and keep pushing, we have two and of course there was time left, we have another game,” Matthews said. “That we just gathered everyone, everyone was excited to give us a little extra impetus.”
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