The Toronto Maple Leafs and their youthful roster continue to play spoiler.
John Mitchell had the shootout winner, Phil Kessel scored his team-leading 28th goal and Jonas Gustavsson won his fifth straight start for Toronto as the Maple Leafs downed the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 on Saturday night. Those players are all 25 or younger - as are many others on the current roster.
"We're seeing that some of these kids, they look like they can play," Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. "They're playing in live-fire situations right now against teams that are really battling. The points are huge for these teams we're playing.
"It's their first time getting those opportunities - it's not like you get to a point where you've been mathematically eliminated and all of a sudden some of your guys show up and relax and start playing. These guys are basically playing for their jobs and it's fun to see how hard they compete."
Toronto has won six of seven and is playing its best hockey of the season. Four of those wins came in extra time, an area where the Leafs struggled mightily early.
Mitchell and Nikolai Kulemin each scored in the shootout against Montreal's Jaroslav Halak, who had allowed just one shootout goal on 16 attempts coming into the game. Gustavsson turned aside two of the three Canadiens shooters.
The rookie goalie has been alternating starts with J.S. Giguere and is looking more comfortable with each passing week.
"I think it's a good setup for me," Gustavsson said. "It's perfect."
Elsewhere in the NHL it was: Dallas 5 Ottawa 4; Detroit 4 Vancouver 3 (OT); Carolina 3 Pittsburgh 2 (OT); St. Louis 1 New Jersey 0; Washington 3 Tampa Bay 1; Atlanta 5 Philadelphia 2; Buffalo 3 Florida 1; Nashville 1 Columbus 0 (OT); Phoenix 5 Chicago 4 (SO); and Los Angeles 1 N.Y Islanders 0.
At Toronto, Kessel and Tyler Bozak scored in regulation for the Maple Leafs, who still sit 29th overall.
Brian Gionta had both goals for Montreal.
The Canadiens squandered a chance to leapfrog Ottawa and Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference standings. They entered on a six-game winning streak and would have moved into fifth place with another victory.
"We just weren't on our game," Gionta said. "We weren't sharp enough. A team like that, they're going to take advantage of that and we were playing catch up the whole game because of that."
They'll need to be better with an important stretch looming. The Canadiens host the struggling Senators on Monday before playing at division-leading Buffalo on Wednesday.
The score was tied 1-1 when Kessel scored the nicest goal, wiring a wrist shot past Halak from the top of the circle at 18:15 of the second. The Leafs winger has six goals in six games and is closing in on the 30-goal mark for the second straight season. He has 28.
"He's such a good player and finds the openings so well," Bozak said of his linemate. "You see with his shot tonight, he can score from the outside, as well. Wherever he's got the puck there's a good chance it's going in."
Toronto was nearly undone with penalty trouble. The Leafs killed off a four-minute high-sticking call to Jamie Lundmark that stretched into the third period, but surrendered the tying goal after Fredrik Sjostrom went off for tripping.
Gionta was standing in the high slot and tipped Scott Gomez's shot behind Gustavsson with less than seven minutes to play in regulation. That set the stage for overtime - the fourth time that's happened in five meetings between the teams this season.
"We're a confident group in here," Mitchell said. "We're young, we're having a lot of fun. Overtime and the shootout were kind of our nemesis earlier in the season, but things have turned for us in the past few weeks. We're just going to ride this."
Stars 5 Senators 4
At Dallas, Brad Richards had two goals, Trevor Daley scored the winner, and Dallas handed Ottawa its fifth straight defeat despite Jason Spezza's hat trick.
Rookie Jamie Benn and Mike Ribeiro also scored for the Stars, who are trying to stay in the Western Conference playoff race despite a 3-6-1 record since the Olympic break.
Senators goalie Pascal Leclaire was pulled from the game after allowing five goals on 19 shots.
Kari Lehtonen stopped 25 shots in his third straight start for Dallas.
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Red Wings 4 Canucks 3 (OT)
At Vancouver, Henrik Zetterberg in the final second of overtime to lift Detroit to a dramatic victory over the Canucks.
Zetterberg peeled out of the corner around defenceman Christian Ehrhoff, who had lost his stick, and into the slot before lifting a backhand over the left shoulder of Roberto Luongo as time ran out.
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Hurricanes 3 Penguins 2 (OT)
At Pittsburgh, Jamie McBain scored his first NHL goal with less than a second remaining in overtime, and Carolina rallied from a late deficit to beat the Penguins.
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Blues 1 Devils 0
At Newark, N.J., Ty Conklin made 29 saves in his fourth shutout of the season and St. Louis kept up its late-season playoff push with a win over the Devils.
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Capitals 3 Lightning 1
At Tampa, Fla., Alex Ovechkin scored a goal in his return following a two-game NHL suspension and Jose Theodore made 33 saves as Washington beat the Lightning.
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Thrashers 5 Flyers 2
At Atlanta, Colby Armstrong scored two goals and the Thrashers beat Philadelphia to move closer to the Eastern Conference playoff cutoff.
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Sabres 3 Panthers 1
At Sunrise, Fla., Jochen Hecht, Patrick Kaleta and Mike Grier each scored to lift Buffalo over the Panthers.
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Predators 1 Blue Jackets 0 (OT)
At Nashville, Tenn., Cody Franson scored 1:54 into overtime and Pekka Rinne posted his second straight shutout as the Predators stretched their winning streak to five games.
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Coyotes 5 Blackhawks 4 (SO)
At Glendale, Ariz., Radim Vrbata scored the lone goal of the shootout and Phoenix rallied to beat Chicago and stretch its winning streak to eight.
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Kings 1 Islanders 0
At Los Angeles, Jonathan Quick posted his fourth shutout of the season and Brad Richardson scored in the first period, leading the Kings over the New York Islanders.