ANAHEIM — It was a night of scores settled and scores upended, as the Ducks led, trailed, pulled even and ultimately fell to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-4, in overtime on Monday night at Honda Center.
Leo Carlsson bookended the Ducks’ scoring despite missing a chunk of the third period after a collision with linemate Troy Terry. Cutter Gauthier had a power-play goal in the first period but left the game with an upper-body injury and did not return. Jackson LaCombe contributed two assists, including one on John Carlson’s first goal as a Duck.
Ville Husso came up with 23 saves for the Pacific Division-leading Ducks (41-28-5), who have lost two in a row but have points in seven of their past eight (5-1-2) and extended their lead over second-place Edmonton to four points with eight games left in the regular season.
Toronto’s leading scorer William Nylander notched a goal and three primary assists: two on power-play tallies by John Tavares and Matthew Knies in addition to his dish to Morgan Rielly. Rielly and Easton Cowan, who had two assists, connected on Tavares’ second goal, a winner with five seconds left in the bonus frame. Oliver Ekman-Larsson chipped in two assists and Tavares tacked on one. Former Duck Anthony Stolarz stopped 28 shots.
“It reminds me of exactly what happened in Toronto. We had a comfortable lead and we were in a good spot, [but] they’re dangerous off the rush and they turn pucks over,” said Ducks coach Joel Quenneville, referring to a 6-4 loss on March 12 when the Ducks led 3-1, which was also their largest lead on Monday.
In overtime, the Ducks’ Tim Washe nearly finished the job off a two-on-one break, but Stolarz denied him in athletic fashion. It was one of several stellar saves at both ends that set the scene for Tavares’ OT heroism.
While the teams combined for two late lead changes and 93 penalty minutes, much of the spiciest action unfolded before the puck drooped.
First, there was the previous meeting in which Ducks captain Radko Gudas knocked Toronto captain Auston Matthews out for the season with a knee-on-knee hit that got him suspended for five games. Gudas played Monday despite a lower-body injury of his own, and fought Max Domi after the opening faceoff in addition to a pair of other confrontational moments.
Then, the Leafs (32-30-13), who sank like a stone in the standings season over season, fired their general manager, Brad Treliving, not long before the opening faceoff. Treliving was ousted after nearly three seasons at the helm, with Coach Craig Berube’s future also uncertain.
“(Berube) told us quickly before warmup, it’s really difficult. It’s still hard to grasp it all, but mostly we’re just extremely disappointed as a team,” Tavares said. “We just didn’t do a good enough job, and it’s very unfortunate that he’s been let go.”
After the opening bout, Toronto continued prioritizing physicality over effectiveness. They went down two men early and made a hit behind a play that became a goal before giving up a power-play tally. They also diced their deficit with the extra man, leaving the score at 2-1 through 20 minutes.
Knies, whose roughing penalty had set up an unsuccessful five-on-three opportunity, was a wrecking ball and a reckless one on the Ducks’ first goal. He hit Carlsson along the boards and when the Ducks regrouped in the neutral zone, he abandoned his position to crunch Olen Zellweger.
Zellweger got the secondary assist as his fall took down Jake McCabe, leaving Troy Stecher at the net to defend three Ducks. Chris Kreider occupied Stecher as Terry set up Carlsson, 6:43 into the match.
After Nylander took a run at Husso, the Ducks cashed in on the power play when Gauthier fired a wrist shot through Stolarz’s five hole for his team-leading 38th goal of the season, at 9:46. Gauthier, however, was injured by a cross check later in the stanza and did not return.
A cross-check from Jeffrey Viel left the Ducks shorthanded, and they paid the price when Tavares snapped in a rebound goal with 5:42 left in the frame.
The Ducks regained a two-goal lead at the 11:33 mark of the second period, off Carlson’s first goal in a Ducks uniform. Carlson had seven assists in his previous three games but finished off a short-handed rush with a rising shot to the far side this time. He had 10 goals with the Washington Capitals before switching addresses at the trade deadline.
“We should have had two points in the game and been moving on to tomorrow,” the 36-year-old veteran said. “We did a good job for a lot of the game in terms of how we played and in terms of dealing with the emotions, but we’ve got to be more mature and come out on top of these games.”
The Leafs pulled within a goal on Knies’ shot from above the left circle and through traffic with 13:05 to play.
With 9:46 remaining in regulation, Toronto made it a new game when Beckett Sennecke’s giveaway turned into a partial two-on-none break that Nylander finished with authority.
“They’re a great team in transition, so, yeah, it was too sloppy for us,” Carlsson said.
Carlsson helped the Ducks lift a point from the game, finding a big rebound in the slot and flinging it past Stolarz for his 26th goal of 2025-26.
“It was nice to see him return. It’s amazing how many times – we’d just gotten the goalie out, I don’t know if it was a factor in the play – but certainly we’ll take that point,” Quenneville said.