AP CHICAGO (AP) — After John Tavares went off and Auston Matthews and Patrick Kane staged a memorable duel, Morgan Rielly got the last word on a wild Sunday night. Rielly scored 19 seconds into overtime, Tavares had three goals and the Toronto Maple Leafs spoiled Chicago's home opener with a 7-6 victory over the Blackhawks. "Top to bottom we had contribution everywhere," Tavares said. Matthews had two goals and two assists for Toronto in the opener of a four-game trip. Rielly also had two assists and Kasperi Kapanen finished with a goal and an assist, helping the Maple Leafs bounce back from Saturday night's 5-3 loss to Ottawa. Garret Sparks, who is from the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst, made 25 saves to get the win in his first NHL game since 2016. "I went up against my childhood heroes tonight and there's nothing cooler than that," the 25-year-old Sparks said. Chicago was looking for its first 3-0 start since the 2012-13 season, but it was unable to clamp down on Toronto's high-scoring lines. Kane scored twice in the final two minutes of regulation, and defensemen Duncan Keith and rookie Henri Jokiharju each had three assists. "It was a pretty crazy game," Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "The quality of chances, the quantity of goals, the way it ended was a different level of unpredictability." It was Tavares' first hat trick since he agreed to a $77 million, seven-year contract with Toronto in July, choosing his hometown team over several other suitors in free agency. The contract ramped up expectations for the Leafs, and the talented center is already having an effect on his new franchise. "(I) want to be as consistent as I can so I prepare myself and expect a lot of myself on a nightly basis, with and without the puck," Tavares said. Tavares' last goal made it 5-4 midway through the third, but the Maple Leafs and Blackhawks were just getting started. Especially Matthews and Kane. Kane tied it again from a bad angle with 1:24 remaining, shooting it past a screened Sparks. Then Matthews put the Maple Leafs back in front just 22 seconds later, beating Cam Ward from between the circles before holding his glove to his ear as if he was asking for more noise from the United Center crowd. With the third period winding down, Kane wasn't done quite yet. He one-timed a big slap shot by Sparks with 29 seconds left, and then held his glove to his ear in response to Matthews. "I wasn't really happy when he did it, so it was nice to get a chance to score and kinda give it back to him," Kane said. "Wish we could have got another one in overtime." But Rielly closed it out quickly in OT, sending a low wrist shot past Ward on the glove side. "Obviously a strange night with the way it finished," he said. "We don't want to be in those games too often, but obviously we're happy with the outcome." Jonathan Toews, Alex DeBrincat, John Hayden and Brandon Manning also scored for the Blackhawks, who opened the season with two overtime wins. Ward finished with 27 stops. Chicago got off to a fast start after an emotional pregame tribute to Hall of Fame forward Stan Mikita, who spent his entire 22-year NHL career with the franchise and died in August at age 78. Mikita's wife, Jill, wiped away tears after a video of Mikita highlights was shown on the videoboard, and she was joined by Tavares and Toews for a ceremonial puck drop. The Blackhawks wore patches with Mikita's No. 21 on their jerseys, and No. 21 was painted on the ice behind each goal. Toews then put Chicago in front when he tipped home Dominik Kahun's shot, and DeBrincat made it 2-0 when he finished off a pretty passing sequence 12:02 into the first. It was Toews' fifth goal in three games; he needed 19 games to score five times last season. Toronto responded with two goals in a 34-second span on plays by Kapanen and Matthews. First, Matthews made a perfect pass ahead to Kapanen for a breakaway at 14:09. Then Kapanen stripped Keith behind the net and found Matthews for the tying score. NOTES: Tavares got his ninth career hat trick. ... It was Hayden's first game of the season. F Andreas Martinsen was out of the lineup. ... D Martin Marincin replaced Igor Ozhiganov in Toronto's lineup. It was Marincin's first appearance this season. UP NEXT Maple Leafs: Visit Dallas on Tuesday night. Blackhawks: Visit Minnesota on Thursday night. ___ Jay Cohen can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jcohenap ___ More AP NHL coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/NHL<doc-sep>The undefeated Chicago Blackhawks will make their United Center debut on Sunday night, returning home to face the John Tavares and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Tavares was, by far, the best free agent available this summer and Toronto brought the center back to his native Ontario on a 7-year, $77-million deal. That signing meant Toronto would lose a few of its depth scorers during free agency, with James van Riemsdyk returning to Philadelphia and Tyler Bozak moving on to St. Louis. But the Tavares signing trumped all of those moves. Adding Tavares to an already-loaded forward group consisting of Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner made Toronto another of the popular picks for a deep postseason run and perhaps that elusive Stanley Cup — which Toronto hasn’t won since 1967. And the Maple Leafs could be even better if William Nylander — another talented youngster and son of former Blackhawk Michael — resolves his current contract dispute with the team. But the blue line remains questionable in Toronto. Morgan Rielly appears to be everything Toronto hoped he’d be when they drafted him fifth overall in 2012. Behind him, though, there are a lot of “buts.” Jake Gardiner remains a consistent offensive threat but a liability in the defensive zone. Nikita Zaitsev seems like an NHL-worthy defenseman but may not be quite at the level Toronto needs him to be for a deep run. Ron Hainsey is here, but he’s 37 years old. All of that is front of goaltender Frederik Andersen, who had decent numbers in the regular season (.918 save percentage, 2.81 goals-against average) but was lit up by the Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs last year. Andersen may still be broken because of what Jonathan Toews did to him in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Backup Garrett Sparks is expected to be in net for Toronto tonight after Andersen started last night in a 5-3 loss to the Ottawa Senators that likely had some segments of the Toronto fan base prematurely reaching for the panic button. For the Blackhawks, they’ll turn to Anton Forsberg in net after Cam Ward notched victories in his first two outings, including Saturday night’s 5-4 overtime win at St. Louis. Toews led the way again in that game, scoring a hat trick that included the game-winner. Through two games, it looks like Toews has found the fountain of youth — or perhaps he’s just getting rewarded with the goals that weren’t coming despite his impressive possession metrics over the last few seasons. Either way, it’s an encouraging sign through the first 120 minutes of play this season. Other lineup changes are possible with Chicago on the tail end of a back-to-back, including the season debuts of forward John Hayden and free agent signing Brandon Davidson on the blue line. Andreas Martinsen and Jan Rutta, respectively, seem like the logical substitutions. It’s two teams playing their second game in as many nights while having to travel to Chicago following the first game on Saturday night, and each team is playing its backup goaltender. The Blackhawks are riding high after a win over a division rival, while the Leafs are reeling a bit after a loss to the NHL’s expected basement dweller. Can’t see a reason why either of those arcs should shift course on Sunday night. Lineups Blackhawks Blackhawks version of Mallrats: DeBrincat-Toews-Kahun Saad-Schmaltz-Kane Kunitz-Anisimov-Kampf Kruger-Johnson-Martinsen/Hayden Keith-Jokiharju Manning-Seabrook Gustafsson-Rutta/Davidson — Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) October 5, 2018 (Forsberg expected to be in net) Maple Leafs (From Saturday’s game vs. Ottawa, expect Sparks in net over Andersen) Leafs lines at morning skate Hyman-Tavares-Marner Marleau-Matthews-Ennis Leivo-Kadri-Brown Johnsson-Lindholm-Kapanen Rielly-Hainsey Gardiner-Zaitsev Dermott-Ozhiganov Marincin-Holl Andersen starts Sparks — Mark Masters (@markhmasters) October 6, 2018 How to watch Start time: 6 p.m. Central Location: United Center, Chicago TV: NBC Sports Chicago<doc-sep>You have to love the first couple of weeks of the NHL season when everybody forgets how to play defense and the goalies aren’t yet up to their peak performance. So far this season we have been treated to some wild games, and the wildest of the bunch may have taken place in Chicago on Sunday night were the Maple Leafs were 7-6 overtime winners against the Blackhawks. This game had everything. A few of the highlights… — After Chicago raced out to an early 2-0 lead (with another strong early season showing form Jonathan Toews leading the way), John Tavares scored three goals to record his first hat trick as a member of the Maple Leafs, with his third goal giving his team a 5-4 lead midway through the third period. At the time it looked like that goal might be enough to give his team the win. While it certainly contributed it was not the game-winner because after he scored that is when all heck broke loose. — Over the final 85 seconds of regulation the two teams combined to score three goals, with Patrick Kane starting the madness with a game-tying goal (with the Blackhawks’ net empty for the extra attacker) with just 1:24 to play. That goal was quickly answered (only 22 seconds later to be exact) by Auston Matthews, scoring his fifth goal of the season and second of the game, to help Toronto regain the lead. With their performances on Sunday it means Tavares and Matthews have now combined to score nine of the Maple Leafs’ first 13 goals this season. This particular goal from Matthews resulted in a pretty great celebration as he taunted the United Center crowd. But this game was far from over! Just 33 seconds after that Kane responded with yet another game-tying goal in the final two minutes of regulation, and he made sure to return the favor to Matthews by mimicking his celebration. — Once the two teams made it to overtime they did not need much time to decide a winner with Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Reilly scoring the game-winner just 19 seconds in … and it was a terrible goal for Cam Ward to give up. — The one thing this game did not have, obviously, was defense and goaltending and there was perhaps no better way to illustrate that than the fact that Toronto’s Garret Sparks not only got the win, but also had the best save percentage out of the two starting goalies … at .806. That is brutal. Chicago’s Cam Ward managed only a .794 mark and continued what has been a miserable start to the season as he attempts to fill in for Corey Crawford. The experiment is not going well. MORE: Your 2018-19 NHL on NBC TV schedule — Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.<doc-sep>
I’ll be honest, folks: I don’t know how to comprehend everything we witnessed Sunday night. If you missed the broadcast, I’m not sure my words are going to do justice for the sheer insanity this game contained. But let’s give it a shot, anyway. In one of the craziest regular season games in recent memory, the Chicago Blackhawks lost 7-6 in overtime to the Toronto Maple Leafs at the United Center. It started innocent enough, with the teams trading two goals in the first period (including a beauty of a passing play between Duncan Keith, Dominik Kahun and Alex DeBrincat) and then Toronto pulled ahead for a 4-3 advantage to start the third period. Then, this hockey game started venturing into the realm of the absurd. Just 2:20 into the third period, Brandon Manning — the much-maligned free agent signing — tied the game 4-4 with a bullet of a slapshot. About seven minutes later, John Tavares completed his hat trick with an unbelievable pick of the puck out of mid-air before ripping a shot past Blackhawks goalie Cam Ward. Then, this hockey game lost all of its attachment to reality. With the Blackhawks’ net empty, Patrick Kane found some open space on the right side and one-timed a puck past Elmhurst native Garrett Sparks to tie the game 5-5. Then Auston Matthews put Toronto back in front 22 seconds later. Then Kane scored, again, just 33 seconds after Matthews put Toronto up 6-5. Perhaps even better than the goals were the dueling celebrations by Kane and Matthews, who trained together in the offseason. Somehow, Toronto and Chicago managed to keep the puck out of their respective nets in the final 29 seconds to send the game into overtime. Then Morgan Rielly made it a Toronto victory with a goal just 19 seconds into the extra session. Got all that? Good. On to the thoughts. 3 Thoughts The power play. Oh, the power play. It’s hard to find a new way to describe the same old frustration that’s come with watching the Blackhawks in this young season and the last few: a dreadful, terrible, demoralizing power play. A four-minute advantage in the second period yielded zero shots on goal and zapped the energy out of the United Center crowd. It’s unfathomable that a team with this kind of offensive firepower always struggles on the power play and, yet, here we are. This is what’s going to happen with Cam Ward First off, starting a 34-year-old goalie for the second night in a row when the Blackhawks do have another living, breathing goalie on the roster feels like a strange decision by coach Joel Quenneville. Anton Forsberg probaby should’ve started this game. It almost raises questions about whether or not Forsberg is fully recovered from the morning skate incident last Thursday that required Collin Delia to be recalled from Rockford for the season opener. But in the last two games, Ward played well enough for the Blackhawks to win and they did. On Sunday night, he did not, and they lost. It feels like Ward’s ceiling as a goaltender is “playing well enough to win.” If Chicago’s offense continues pouring in goals like this, then the Blackhawks will be just fine until Corey Crawford returns. And when Crawford returns? Yeah ... that could be a lot of fun. One tweet to summarize the first three games of the season You'll take 2-0-1 and you'll like it. — Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) October 8, 2018 But I hope you enjoyed that game. Even though Chicago ended up on the wrong side of the scoreboard, that’s as entertaining of a regular season hockey game as you’ll ever see. 3 Stars