Bozak’s hat trick in 3rd leads Leafs past Avalanche 7-4

Tyler Bozak scored three times during a four-goal third period for his second career hat trick and defenseman Jake Gardiner collected four assists as the Maple Leafs produced their highest offensive output of the season.

The Colorado Avalanche walked into tonight’s home contest against the Toronto Maple Leafs riding a five-game winning streak and sporting a wonderful 8-2-0 record in the month of December.

In Pittsburgh, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel each scored two goals, and the Penguins ended a five-game losing streak. It was his fifth of the season and second in as many games.

Maple Leafs leading scorer Leo Komarov scored two of the power-play goals and Joffrey Lupul had the other. “We got some good plays and some lucky bounces”.

Toronto’s power play is converting at 14.6 per cent against the rest of the National Hockey League but 87.5 per cent versus Colorado this season.

Bozak got the victor when he joined a 2-on-1 rush with van Riemsdyk.

“We were tied going into the third and whenever you are on the road and go into the third tied, it’s not bad”, Bozak said.

Bozak scored on a breakaway at 6:47 to put Toronto ahead 5-3, and van Riemsdyk capped the flurry with his 11th at 10:40.

Despite firing just 19 shots on net compared to 36 for Montreal, Nashville chased Dustin Tokarski after three goals, got one past his replacement, Mike Condon, and added an empty-netter for the easy win.

“Like I told you before, the puck is just bouncing my way right now… we just have to keep winning the games”.

“Tough way to go into the break”, Avalanche centre Nathan MacKinnon said.

As much as Komarov is a fan favorite and the type of player that many clubs search years to find, his talents are being wasted on a team years away from being good enough to make the playoffs and contend, whereas the draft picks or prospects acquired in a trade could be another piece in the puzzle to making the Leafs of the future a more complete team.

The lethargic Colorado power play would sap the momentum from the Avalanche as they would get nothing going on their one opportunity halfway through the period and it would prove to be the turning point of the first as Colorado would take a penalty of their own on a dubious tripping call against Francois Beauchemin. Johnson pinched down on the left side, took a crossing pass from Gabriel Landeskog and beat Bernier with a one-timer to tie it at 18:43 of the second.

On Doan’s first goal, defenseman Stefan Elliott threw the puck into the zone from the red line and it caromed off the back boards and out in front of goaltender Jonathan Bernier.

Domingue stopped a short-handed breakaway by center Byron Froese with about a minute left in the period, and he turned aside a penalty shot by left wing Michael Grabner with 5.7 seconds left in the period. He went 3-0-0 with a 0.67 goals-against average, .981 save percentage and one shutout.