Tavares, Maple Leafs hold off Jets

John Tavares scored in the third period, and Frederik Andersen made 38 saves to help the Toronto Maple Leafs defeat the Winnipeg Jets 4-2 at Bell MTS Centre in Winnipeg on Wednesday.

Tavares made it 4-2 at 8:28 of the third period and ended his five-game goal drought when he put in the rebound of a Mitchell Marner shot at the top of the goal crease.
"It's just so hard for the defenseman to be able to handle Marner] when he's skating like that," Tavares said of Marner skating across the slot and getting off a backhand. "Hell of a move, and knowing him and his hockey sense, I just tried to go to the back post to see if there's any trash. Beneficiary of a great play from him."
***[WATCH: [All Maple Leafs vs. Jets highlights]*
It came 2:00 after the Jets scored twice in 1:31 to make it 3-2.
Andersen made 20 saves in the third period.
"Those situations are usually big momentum swings and I think we came out great there," Andersen said. "We got one right after their power-play goal and, obviously, got the two-goal lead again and that kind of slowed them down again."

Kasperi Kapanen, Tyler Ennis and Nazem Kadri scored for the Maple Leafs (7-3-0), who are 5-0-0 on the road and won for the first time in three games.
"I think it's real simple for us," Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. "If you want to play right and you want to play hard, suddenly you look fast again. We looked real slow the last two games coming out of our own zone (in losses to the Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues). Tonight we looked fast."
Nikolaj Ehlers and Mark Scheifele scored, and Connor Hellebuyck made 35 saves for the Jets (6-3-1), who had won three in a row and were 14-0-1 in their past 15 regular-season home games. Winnipeg had not lost a game at home in regulation since losing 6-5 to the Nashville Predators on Feb. 27.
"More concerned about our defending than anything else," Jets coach Paul Maurice said. "Anything that we had clean that we could look at, we missed the net 11 times in the second period. That keeps you from feeling good about your offensive game, but it was more the defensive plays, the turnovers in our end of the ice."
Winnipeg made it 3-1 at 4:57 of the third period when Ehlers scored his first goal of the season, ending a streak of 26 games without a goal dating to last season, including 15 in the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

"Not scoring [stinks]," said Ehlers, who last scored April 3 at the Montreal Canadiens. "Getting this one today even though we lost definitely gives me some confidence. Scoring always does. Now I just need to keep skating, keep playing the way I did today."
Scheifele scored on the power play to make it 3-2 at 6:28 when he took a Blake Wheeler pass from behind the net and shot from the slot.
The Maple Leafs took a 1-0 lead at 14:38 of the first period when Kapanen shot past Hellebuyck's blocker from the slot. It was Kapanen's fourth goal in five games.
Ennis scored his first goal of the season to make it 2-0 at 2:25 of the second period when he deflected a shot from Josh Leivo at the top of the goal crease.

Kadri scored his first goal the season when he put a wrist shot past Hellebuyck's glove from the right face-off dot at 11:43 to make it 3-0.
"It was [about time]," Kadri said after ending a nine-game goal drought. "Just trying to stay positive, the whole mentality. I've been around long enough to try to not get frustrated, but that's always nice finding the back of the net and contributing to help your team win. Hopefully they come in bunches."

They said it

"I thought we just did a really good job of recovering a lot of pucks and when we had to retrieve it we worked hard to put pressure on them, getting above them, causing some turnovers and making them have to rush a lot of plays coming up the ice and in their own zone. That gave us some time and space to get it, make some plays and get some puts on net." -- Maple Leafs center John Tavares
"I thought he was good from the start. Looked like he was close. He had three good whacks at it in the first. So it's important though, because you can meet and show video and pump tires and do whatever you want, but a goal-scorer has to put the puck in the net to get that good feeling, so we hope this is a start for him." -- Jets coach Paul Maurice on forward Nikolaj Ehlers scoring his first goal of the season

Need to know

Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews has gone three games without a point after starting the season with seven consecutive multipoint games. It was the first time he and Jets forward Patrik Laine, selected at No. 2 in the 2016 NHL Draft, one pick after Matthews, each was held without a point in five NHL games against each other. Toronto is 3-1-1 in those games. … Toronto has won each of its first five road games of a season for the third time in its history (7-0-0 in 1940-41, 5-0-0 in 1993-94). Nashville is the only other NHL team that is undefeated on the road (4-0-0). ... Ehlers had a game-high eight shots.

What's next

Maple Leafs: Host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; CBC, SN360, NHL.TV)
Jets: At the Detroit Red Wings on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET; NHLN, FS-D, TSN3, NHL.TV)