{"id":550350,"date":"2026-03-21T03:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T03:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/550350\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T03:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T03:17:14","slug":"carolina-hurricanes-down-toronto-maple-leafs-in-ot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/550350\/","title":{"rendered":"Carolina Hurricanes down Toronto Maple Leafs in OT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\tBy Joshua Clipperton<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted March 20, 2026 9:44 pm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t2 min read\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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TORONTO \u2013 Alexander Nikishin scored 41 seconds into overtime as the Carolina Hurricanes downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 on Friday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eric Robinson, on a penalty shot, K\u2019Andre Miller and Jordan Staal had the other goals for Carolina (44-19-6). Brandon Bussi made 23 saves. Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho had two assists apiece.<\/p>\n

John Tavares, William Nylander and Dakota Joshua replied for Toronto (29-28-13), which got 32 stops from Joseph Woll. Matias Maccelli added two assists.<\/p>\n

Nikishin scored the winner in the extra period when he ripped a shot beyond Woll\u2019s blocker.<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Division-leading Hurricanes entered Friday third in the NHL\u2019s overall standings and first in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

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The severely underperforming Maple Leafs, meanwhile, sat 26th out of 32 teams, second-last in the East and at the bottom of the Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n

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TAKEAWAYS<\/p>\n

Hurricanes: Aho became the third player to hit at least 70 points in five seasons with the Hurricanes\/Hartford Whalers. Ron Francis (11) and Eric Staal (seven) top the list.<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews underwent surgery on his left MCL in New York on Thursday. Toronto\u2019s captain was injured last week after taking a knee-on-knee hit from Anaheim Ducks defenceman Radko Gudas. The Maple Leafs said the recovery time for Matthews is expected to be 12 weeks.<\/p>\n

KEY MOMENT<\/p>\n

Robinson scored on a second-period penalty shot after being hooked on a breakaway by Maple Leafs defenceman Troy Stecher. The Carolina winger moved in on Woll as a sleepy Scotiabank Arena came to life, and fired his 12th goal of the campaign past the netminder\u2019s glove.<\/p>\n

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KEY STAT<\/p>\n

Benoit-Olivier Groulx picked up an assist on the opening goal to give him a point in three straight home games since joining Toronto. Five other players in the past 20 years have had a run of at least that length to start their time with the Original Six franchise: Eric Lindros (six games in 2005-06), Mike Van Ryn (five games in 2008-09), Ron Hainsey (four games in 2017-18), Michael Bunting (three games in 2021-22) and Nikita Zaitsev (three games in 2016-17).<\/p>\n

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UP NEXT<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: Visit the Ottawa Senators on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Hurricanes: Visit the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Joshua Clipperton The Canadian Press Posted March 20, 2026 9:44 pm 2 min read Descrease article font…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,5239,8461,72243,3648,72244,448,82,3302,72245,72246,746,72247],"class_list":["post-550350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-hockey","tag-leafs","tag-leafs-hockey","tag-maple-leafs","tag-national-hockey-league","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-hockey","tag-toronto-leafs","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-toronto-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}