Maple Leafs Ground Jets in Toronto

Toronto announced before the game rookie forward Nick Robertson will miss at least four weeks with a knee injury, which forced the team to put both third-string goalie Aaron Dell and veteran forward Jason Spezza on waivers for salary cap purposes. "He is an established goaltender in the league and we knew when signing him it would be hard to get him through waivers, if it came to that".

Keefe went with 11 forwards and seven defencemen, electing to use Mikko Lehtonen on the blue line for the first time.

"I like the group that we've got", he said.

"We wanted to give him last week as a chance to watch the games and be in more meetings and get a better feel for things and now, we don't want too much time to elapse before he gets in a game", Keefe said. "We didn't love giving up the goal at the end of the period, but we faced some adversity here with how well we played in the second and we fought hard to get the two-goal lead".

Marner sealed it with an empty-netter with 22.6 seconds left.

"If you look at the disruption of players defensively, the impact that he's had on the games over two, he's been our best", Maurice said. The Leafs captain fired the puck past goaltender Connor Hellebuyck for his third goal of the season.

Tavares, off to a hot start, scored the opening goal at 5:28 of the second on a Toronto power play after taking a feed from William Nylander.

Matthews has gained a half-step after shedding 10 pounds off his playing weight during the off-season, getting down to the 210-pound range.

"I'm not sure I can say I have figured this guy out because I don't think anybody has or will", Matthews said of McDavid's deep well of hockey talent.