Marner has 4 points, Maple Leafs surge past Oilers

TORONTO -- Mitchell Marner had a goal and three assists for the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 7-4 win against the Edmonton Oilers at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday.

The Maple Leafs scored four consecutive goals in a 5:59 span in the second period after falling behind by two goals.
"How it happened in Edmonton, we weren't happy with that game (a 5-2 loss on March 1), how we played, the score and everything with it," Marner said. "We just wanted to be a lot better tonight, and I think we did that."
John Tavares had two goals and an assist, William Nylander had a goal and an assist, and Noel Acciari scored twice for the Maple Leafs (40-17-8), who have won two in a row. Matt Murray made 22 saves.
Toronto remained in second place in the Atlantic Division, four points ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Connor McDavid had a goal and two assists, and Stuart Skinner made 31 saves for the Oilers (36-23-8), who had won two straight.
Edmonton holds the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference, three points ahead of the Winnipeg Jets.
"The last eight minutes of that period, not our finest hour," Oiler coach Jay Woodcroft said. "Certainly situations within our control. We thought we got away from playing simple. We tried to pass through people and they're good team, they had good sticks and I just saw a lot of self-inflicted wounds during that little time frame there."
Marner cut it to 3-2 at 12:56 when he intercepted a cross-slot pass from Ryan McLeod and deked Skinner at the top of the crease.
"I just tried to put pressure, realized it was a forward and tried to make him feel uncomfortable and read the play, and lucky enough I was able to do so," Marner said.
Nylander tied it 3-3 at 14:49 when he took a pass from Marner, who stole the puck from Vincent Desharnais, and shot from just above the right hash marks. He has 34 goals this season, tying his NHL career high.
"We just kept getting turnovers and Mitch made some nice plays to get the puck and take the puck from them and score some big goals," Nylander said. "Just the way he reads the play on both of those, he was trying to make the guy make the play, and he read it so perfectly."
"With [his goal] and the play he passed it to me, he just took everything and took over the game for us."

Tavares gave Toronto a 4-3 lead at 15:56. He stole the puck from Darnell Nurse at the red line then one-timed a pass from Auston Matthews on a 2-on-1.
Tavares then scored his 30th of the season to make it 5-3 at 18:55. He put in a loose puck in the slot on a power play after Ryan Nugent-Hopkins knocked down Marner's pass.
"It's a team that you give them opportunities, they've got enough skill to make you pay, and that's kind of what happened," Nugent-Hopkins said. "I thought we let them push us a little bit too much in the later half of the second period and take over a little bit. You can't give a team like that anything easy. It's not on one or two guys, it's everybody in here to be better in that second period. We weren't and they took advantage."

Matthews made it 6-3 during a power play at 10:50 of the third period, one-timing a pass from Tavares in the slot for his 30th goal of the season.
"I think we just kept our foot on the gas," Matthews said. "I thought the first period, honestly, we had some good control, good looks but obviously we came out of it down a goal. I thought we just stuck with it. Power play came up with some big goals. I thought we just kind of tilted the ice our way and never really looked back."
Leon Draisaitl cut the lead to 6-4 at 12:31 when he one-timed a pass from Nugent-Hopkins on the power play.
Acciari scored into an empty net at 19:10 for the 7-4 final.
"What we do control is our execution level, and it wasn't at a high enough level tonight," Woodcroft said.

Acciari gave the Maple Leafs a 1-0 lead at 3:05 of the first period when he scored on a rebound in the slot.
Mattias Ekholm scored 22 seconds later on a slap shot from the top of the left circle to tie it 1-1. It was his first goal with Edmonton since being acquired from the Nashville Predators on Feb. 28.
Evander Kane put Edmonton ahead 2-1 at 11:24 of the first period. He took a pass from McDavid at the blue line, skated into the offensive zone, and rounded the net before beating Murray with a wraparound.
McDavid pushed it to 3-1 at 2:33 of the second period when he cut across the slot and shot five-hole on Murray for his NHL-leading 55th goal of the season.
NOTES: Matthews has scored at least 30 goals in each of his first seven seasons. ... Murray got his first win since Jan. 11. It was his second game back after missing 17 due to an ankle injury.