Offtopic » TORONTO (AP) — It took two late goals

by Zach Hyman and a huge comeback by Toronto to end its longest losing streak of the season.Hyman scored two goals in the final 1:50 of the third period as the Maple Leafs erased an early 3-0 deficit and beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-3 Saturday night.William Nylander and Auston Matthews each had a goal and an assist http://www.officialcoyotes.com/authentic-adidas-oliver-ekman-larsson-jersey , and Tyler Ennis and Andreas Johnsson also scored for Toronto, which snapped a season-high three-game losing streak. Frederik Andersen stopped 32 shots, and Patrick Marleau, Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly had two assists each.Hyman and Johnsson scored empty-net goals.“The first 10 minutes we were all over them and then all of a sudden it’s 3-0,” Hyman said. “What a win for us to end a losing streak, to come back like we did (on) Saturday night against Montreal.“It’s a good feeling.”Andrew Shaw and Jeff Petry each had a goal and an assist, and Tomas Tatar scored for Montreal, which had its three-game win streak halted. Carey Price made 31 saves.“Hockey games lasts for 60 minutes, and we didn’t play the full 60,” Canadiens winger Artturi Lehkonen said.Hyman netted the eventual winner when he scored off a rebound of a shot by Mitch Marner. It was Hyman’s 12th of the season.“Everybody contributed,” Hyman said. “It was one of our best team wins of the year to be able to come back like that.”Johnsson added his 17th into an empty net with 57.5 seconds left. Hyman’s empty-net goal came after he was taken down on a breakaway by Shea Weber.Montreal built a three-goal lead early in the game. The Maple Leafs closed within a goal in the second period and tied the score at 6:58 of the third on a fortuitous bounce. Marleau’s dump pass in took a crazy hop off the boards in front to Nylander, who fired his fourth into the open net, with Price out of position.Toronto trailed 3-0 after a disastrous opening 20 minutes, but got one back early in the second on the power play. Matthews, who beat Price in overtime in the season opener on Oct. 3 Richard Panik Jersey , took a pass from Rielly and beat Price through the pads for his 29th goal of the season at 2:13.Toronto got another power play toward the end of the period and connected when Nylander fed a no-look pass down low to Marleau, who quickly fed Ennis for his eighth.The Leafs came in having won six in a row against the Canadiens, but fell behind early.Shaw opened the scoring at 8:07 of the first,burying his 13th the season, and third against the Leafs.Toronto challenged for goalie interference, but the call on the ice stood following a quick review.Montreal then went up 2-0 at 12:44 when Toronto’s fourth line turned the puck over in the neutral zone. The Canadiens’ top unit raced the other way and Tatar scored his 21st, beating Andersen on the short side.The Canadiens stretched their lead to three goals on a man advantage at 13:52, when Petry took a pass from Shaw at the top of the left face-off circle and beat Andersen high for his 11th goal.NOTES: Matthews has 10 goals in 10 career outings against the Canadiens. … Ennis, who broke his ankle on Dec. 22, sat out 21 games before returning to the lineup last Saturday. … Montreal winger Jonathan Drouin took the warmup, but was a late scratch with the flu. Nicolas Deslauriers took his place. … Toronto defenseman Jake Gardiner suited up after sitting out Friday’s practice. … Marleau played the 1,635th game of his career, moving past Scott Stevens and into sole possession of eighth on the NHL’s all-time list.UP NEXTLeafs: Host Buffalo on Monday.Canadiens: At New Jersey on Monday. SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) With the top three teams in the Eastern Conference all coming out of the Atlantic Division, there’s a good chance the second and third best teams in the East will play in the first round for the second straight year.That imbalance has led some to push to abandon the division playoff format and go back to seeding teams one through eight by conference. Why stop there?The minor league that brought 3-on-3 overtime to hockey more than a decade before the NHL followed suit is adding a new innovation this season for the playoffs.The Southern Professional Hockey League will use a ”pick your opponent” playoff format Womens Shane Doan Jersey , with the first-place team choosing its first-round opponent from the teams that finished from fifth to eighth place, then the second- and third-place teams makes their choices before the final two teams get matched up. In the second round, teams will be matched by regular-season points.SPHL President Jim Combs said he decided to bring this format to his 10-team league after a conversation with an executive from Austria’s Erste Bank Eishockey Liga, which already uses it.”I immediately knew this was the greatest idea I’d ever heard,” Combs said. ”The person at the top earns the right to pick the weakest of the bottom four. He can base it on travel, he can base it on difficulty of opponent, how the guy has been playing the past three or four weeks. A lot of times, you don’t want the eighth-place team because that’s the guy who has hustled and played hard and put the team together the last two or three weeks of the season. That’s the hot team.”Combs said most teams started the year with thoughts of following the old format of picking the team with the fewest points as the opponent. But as the season has gone on, Combs said teams seem more open to picking what they believe is best matchup.Calgary coach Glen Gulutzan said if the format was used in the NHL, he’d probably make it known he’d pick the lowest seed available in any case.”The first thing that comes to my mind is all of us coaches are paranoid,” Gulutzan said. ”So to actually have to pick somebody, you think immediately we’ve given them some fuel in a playoff series, right, like: `Oh yeah, they picked us.”’To add even more intrigue Anders Bjork Jersey , the SPHL will broadcast the selection show at the end of the season so fans and teams can watch live as the matchups are chosen and the extra motivation is created for whoever is picked as the most desirable playoff opponent.”I think there would be some bulletin board material,” said Columbus defenseman Ian Cole, who won the Stanley Cup the past two seasons with Pittsburgh. ”I think that would certainly fire a team up if you’re picking them because you think you could beat them.”Dallas general manager Jim Nill agrees with that sentiment, saying ”it might be great for their league, but it’s not something I’d encourage our league to do and I couldn’t see it ever happening.”Others are more intrigued by the idea, pointing to the unfairness last year that had Pittsburgh and Columbus matched up in the first round despite finishing with the second and fourth most points in the league, respectively.”It sounds like a great idea,” Buffalo backup goalie Chad Johnson said. ”I mean, why not if you’re in first place you should have that choice of who you want to play? It gives you that advantage regardless, because sometimes the eighth-place team, you might have struggled against them, right?”Combs said he has heard from executives from other minor leagues, NHL teams and a few people from the NHL league office about the new format and hopes it will become more widespread after people see the added drama it creates even if there is some initial hesitation.”In 2004, when we started 3-on-3 overtime, everyone laughed at us and said `Hey this will never happen at the top level Bobby Orr Jersey ,”’ Combs said. ”We played it for 10 years and the NHL adopted it, they’re playing it, they revamped the All-Star Game. They have totally embraced it. Will the NHL take this? They might. I don’t know why after all this excitement every sport wouldn’t do it.”GAME OF THE WEEKPittsburgh at Toronto on Saturday. Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews has been sidelined since Feb. 22 with an apparent shoulder injury but could be ready to return this weekend for a showdown against Sidney Crosby and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. Even if Matthews can’t go, this is still an intriguing game between two Cup contenders.LEADERSThrough Tuesday’s games: Goals: Alex Ovechkin (Washington), 40; Assists: Jakub Voracek (Philadelphia) and Blake Wheeler (Winnipeg), 57; Points: Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay), 86; Wins: Andrei Vasilevskiy (Tampa Bay), 39; Goals-against average: Carter Hutton (St. Louis), 2.02; Save percentage: Hutton, .934.—AP Hockey Writers Larry Lage in Detroit and John Wawrow in Buffalo, New York, contributed to this report.—