TORONTO – Dave Bolland scored in overtime, after Joffrey Lupul tied the game with 31 seconds left in regulation, to lead the Toronto Maple Leafs over the Edmonton Oilers 6-5 in a back-and-forth game Saturday night at Air Canada Centre.
Bolland finished off a 3-on-1 rush with Cody Franson and Jake Gardiner just over two minutes into the extra period, following Lupul’s heroics in the final minute of regulation.
Lupul and James van Riemsdyk each had two goals for Toronto, and Nazem Kadri had the other. Jonathan Bernier, making his third straight start, stopped 26 shots for the win.
Ryan Smyth replied with a pair of goals for Edmonton. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Boyd Gordon and Jordan Eberle had the others, while Devan Dubnyk made 20 saves and Mark Arcobello added three assists.
The win improved the Leafs’ record to 5-1-0, while the Oilers, who began a six-game road trip, dropped to 1-3-1.
Each team scored two goals in a wild opening period.
Edmonton opened the scoring just over five minutes into the first on a controversial goal. Bernier went behind the net to play the puck around the boards and Eberle clipped his right foot as he tried to squeeze between Bernier and the post. Bernier tripped, Eberle got the puck out front and it deflected off Smyth’s skate over Bernier as he scrambled back into the net.
Toronto tied the game at 9:47 on a weak goal. Kadri took a pass from Mason Raymond at the left faceoff dot and roofed a wrist shot over Dubynk just a few feet from the goal-line.
The Leafs took the lead on a power-play goal at 15:26 of the period. Van Riemsdyk tipped a wrist shot from the point by Cody Franson past Dubynk for his fourth goal of the season.
The Oilers got that goal back with less than two minutes left in the period on a 5-on-3 power play. With Colton Orr and van Riemsdyk in the penalty box, Nugent-Hopkins snapped a shot from the slot that snuck between Bernier’s right arm and his body into the net.
The teams split a pair of goals in the second period.
Edmonton picked up where it left off, scoring just over a minute in. With Bernier sprawled on the ice, David Perron backhanded the puck out front from behind the net for an easy tap-in by Gordon.
Toronto tied the game again at 5:20 of the second on a pretty passing play. The Oilers swarmed Kadri and David Broll on the side boards, leaving Lupul all alone in front of their net. Kadri dished Lupul, who one-timed the pass past Dubynk’s glove hand.
Broll, a Leafs sixth-round pick in 2011, assisted on the goal for his first point in the NHL.
The back-and-forth hockey continued in the third.
The Oilers retook the lead at 5:29. Franson got trapped at Edmonton’s blue-line, leaving Morgan Rielly to defend against Arcobello and Eberle on a 2-1 break. Arcobello passed the Eberle, who snuck a shot over Bernier’s left shoulder.
The goal was Eberle’s first of the season.
It took less five minutes for the Leafs to tie the game yet again, as Van Riemsdyk caught Dubnyk leaning the other way on a wraparound.
Edmonton reclaimed the lead at 11:27 when Smyth got his second of the game, finishing off a passing play from Eberle, before Lupul and Bolland completed the comeback for Toronto.
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