{"id":939540,"date":"2026-10-20T02:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T02:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939540\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T02:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T02:50:10","slug":"mckenna-scores-game-winner-to-lift-leafs-over-sharks-snap-three-game-skid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939540\/","title":{"rendered":"McKenna scores game-winner to lift Leafs over Sharks, snap three-game skid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Auston Matthews added a goal and two assists for Toronto (4-4-2). Sergei Bobrovsky made 30 saves to pick up his first home win for the Maple Leafs. Nick Paul added an empty-net goal late in regulation.<\/p>\n<p>Mason Marchment replied for San Jose (4-4-1), which got 28 stops from Yaroslav Askarov.<\/p>\n<p>McKenna fished the puck out of a crowd and fired past Askarov at 4:56 of the final period before dropping to one knee in celebration to snap a 1-1 tie.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto entered play 0-2-1 over its last three contests, and 1-2-2 over the last five.<\/p>\n<p>The game featured the first meeting between the No. 1 and 2 picks at the 2026 NHL draft \u2014 McKenna and Sharks winger Ivar Stenberg.<\/p>\n<p>Marchment opened the scoring at 13:54 of the first when he was left all alone in front of Bobrovsky after Matthews turned the puck over in the defensive zone.<\/p>\n<p>Matthews made up for that mistake and got his team even with 12 seconds left in the second on a power play. Toronto&#8217;s captain took a pass from Kirill Marchenko and ripped a shot upstairs on Askarov before McKenna pushed the home side in front in the third.<\/p>\n<p>Maple Leafs: Star winger William Nylander missed the morning skate with an illness and was listed as a game-time decision, but was healthy enough to suit up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sharks: Marchment was a member of Toronto&#8217;s organization from April 2016 through February 2020. The Uxbridge, Ont., product played four games for the Maple Leafs before getting traded to the Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n<p>Askarov had frustrated Toronto&#8217;s shooters until San Jose was whistled for too many men on the ice late in the second, leading to Matthews getting the home side level through 40 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto entered with the NHL&#8217;s top-ranked penalty kill at 96.4 per cent (27 for 28). The club then killed off all four San Jose man-advantage opportunities Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Sharks: Visit the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Maple Leafs: Visit the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Auston Matthews added a goal and two assists for Toronto (4-4-2). Sergei Bobrovsky made 30 saves to pick&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-939540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939540","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=939540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}