Nashville gave Toronto the Juuse Saros test it expected. The Maple Leafs answered by turning a 3-0 deficit into the first night their rebuilt offense looked like more than a collection of new names.
For a little more than 23 minutes, the Predators had almost perfectly constructed the road game Toronto was supposed to fear. Steven Stamkos scored on the power play, Nils Höglander scored twice and Nashville built a 3-0 lead while Saros waited behind a team protecting the middle well enough to keep the Maple Leafs frustrated.
Then the game changed quickly. Gavin McKenna recorded his first NHL point on John Tavares’ goal, William Nylander scored on the power play two minutes later and Toronto suddenly had a game again. Stamkos restored Nashville’s two-goal lead, but McKenna answered with the first goal of his NHL career before the second period ended.
Jack Roslovic tied it in the third. Nylander briefly appeared to give Toronto the lead before Nashville successfully challenged the play for offside. Saros then survived a three-on-none in overtime, only for Auston Matthews to finish the comeback with 14 seconds remaining.
Toronto won 5-4 and moved to 2-2-0. Nashville left with a point at 1-1-1 and a much less comfortable lesson: the Predators built exactly the kind of lead they wanted and still could not keep Toronto’s skill from eventually turning possession into goals.
Nashville Built the Saros Game Almost Perfectly
The concern entering the game was that Nashville did not need to dominate the puck to win in Toronto. The Predators needed Saros to keep the game stable, their defense to prevent Toronto from turning every possession into an interior chance and their veteran forwards to punish the mistakes that eventually appeared.
That formula worked almost immediately. Stamkos opened the scoring at 7:13 of the first period by converting the rebound of a Matthew Wood shot on the power play. Less than two minutes later, Adam Wilsby’s shot caromed off the end boards and Höglander collected the puck beside the net before wrapping it around Anthony Stolarz.
Höglander struck again 3:03 into the second, finishing a rebound after Filip Forsberg carried the puck toward the crease. Toronto was down 3-0, Nashville had scored on three of its first 14 shots and the game was beginning to look exactly like the sort of frustrating night Saros can turn into a road win.
The Predators did not need more possession at that point. They needed to prevent Toronto from changing the pace.
McKenna’s First Point Changed More Than His Stat Line
McKenna entered his fourth NHL game without a point. His first one arrived at 4:56 of the second period, when he moved the puck to Tavares in transition and Tavares beat Saros from the left circle.
The assist mattered because Toronto finally attacked before Nashville could reset its defensive structure. Rather than cycling around the outside and asking Saros to lose sight of something through traffic, the Leafs created speed through the neutral zone and forced the Predators to defend while moving backward.
Nylander scored on the power play at 6:58, cutting the lead to 3-2 and giving the building the kind of momentum Nashville had prevented through the opening period. Matthews created the original shot, Saros made the save and Nylander finished the rebound from the slot.
Stamkos answered at 13:30, beating Stolarz from the top of the right circle for his second goal of the night and restoring a 4-2 Nashville lead. It could have ended Toronto’s surge.
McKenna refused to let it. At 14:31, Matthews found him above the right faceoff dot and the rookie beat Saros on the blocker side for his first NHL goal. The player who entered the night still waiting for his first point had produced a goal and an assist before the second intermission.
Toronto Finally Made Its New Combinations Look Connected
The first three games of Toronto’s season had produced enough moments to see the individual talent without proving that the pieces already understood how to function together. Tuesday supplied the first sustained answer.
McKenna helped create Tavares’ goal. Matthews and Kirill Marchenko combined on Nylander’s power-play goal. Matthews then created McKenna’s first NHL goal, assisted the tying goal in the third and finished the game himself in overtime. The offense stopped looking like separate lines taking turns and began producing connected sequences across multiple units.
Toronto finished with 37 shots to Nashville’s 25. That volume alone does not explain the comeback. The more important change was where and how the opportunities developed once the Leafs began attacking with speed and recovering second chances around Saros.
The preview question was whether Toronto’s talent could become structure quickly enough to challenge an established goalie. For the first half of the night, the answer looked like no. By the end, the answer had changed completely.
Matthews Controlled the Comeback Without Scoring Until the End
Matthews did not need to carry the comeback by shooting every time Toronto entered the zone. His most important work for most of the night came before the finish.
He assisted on Nylander’s power-play goal, McKenna’s first NHL goal and Roslovic’s third-period equalizer. Roslovic tied the game 4-4 at 8:54 when Matthews sent him in alone and he beat Saros over the glove from close range.
That gave Matthews three assists before he had scored. It was a useful demonstration of how Toronto can become more difficult to defend if its captain does not have to function as the endpoint of every important possession.
He still became the endpoint when the game required one. With 14 seconds remaining in overtime, Nylander attacked from the right side and Saros stopped the initial shot. Matthews arrived at the bottom of the right circle and buried the rebound to complete a four-point night.
The Leafs did not spend the final two periods waiting for Matthews to rescue them. They built enough offense around him that his goal became the final piece instead of the entire plan.
Saros Wasn’t the Reason Nashville Lost the Lead
A 5-4 final can make a goaltender’s night look worse than it was. Saros finished with 33 saves, several of them difficult enough to keep Nashville from losing in regulation.
That included overtime, where Toronto generated a three-on-none and Saros somehow kept the game alive. Nashville had already watched a potential Nylander go-ahead goal disappear after a successful offside challenge in the third. Saros then provided another escape in the extra period.
The problem was how often Toronto was allowed to return. Nashville had enough control to lead 3-0 and later 4-2, but the Predators began losing puck battles and giving the Leafs opportunities to attack through the middle rather than forcing everything toward the perimeter.
Toronto also benefited from Nashville’s penalties. Nylander’s power-play goal accelerated the second-period comeback, and Nashville coach Andrew Brunette pointed directly to the penalties and lost puck battles afterward as moments that allowed Toronto to build momentum.
Saros kept saving the Predators from individual breakdowns. He could not keep saving them from the cumulative effect of allowing Toronto back into the game.
Stamkos and Höglander Gave Nashville More Than Enough Offense
The Predators did not lose because their veteran scorers failed to produce. Stamkos and Höglander scored twice each, while Forsberg assisted on both Höglander goals.
Stamkos’ first goal was the 626th of his career, moving him alone into 17th place on the NHL’s all-time goals list. His second raised that total to 627. Ryan O’Reilly assisted on the second Stamkos goal, giving him the 900th point of his NHL career.
Nashville therefore received the exact kind of finishing it wants from the veterans around whom the lineup has been reorganized. The concern is what happened between those goals. After establishing the lead, the Predators could not consistently keep the puck out of dangerous areas or prevent Toronto from recovering after the first chance.
Four goals on 25 shots should be enough to win many road games. Tuesday became evidence that offensive efficiency cannot compensate forever when the opponent keeps returning with possession.
The Disallowed Goal Gave Nashville One More Chance
Toronto appeared to complete the comeback in regulation when Nylander scored at 11:49 of the third. Nashville challenged the play for offside and won, taking the goal off the board and restoring a 4-4 tie.
That could have been the moment the Predators rebuilt their game. They had survived the three-goal comeback, received a successful challenge and reached overtime with a point already secured.
Instead, the extra period looked increasingly like the same problem in open ice. Toronto created the three-on-none Saros stopped and kept enough possession to generate the final attack with the clock nearly gone.
The successful challenge extended Nashville’s opportunity. It did not restore the control the Predators had owned when the score was 3-0.
The Preview Got the Saros Test Right and the Winner Wrong
Nashville was picked to win 3-2 because the Predators appeared to have the cleaner path to a controlled road game. For more than half the night, that argument looked strong. Saros was sharp, Nashville protected the dangerous areas well enough to build a lead and its veteran scorers converted the opportunities Toronto gave them.
The miss was assuming Nashville could keep the game inside that structure once Toronto began pushing back. The Predators did not merely surrender one unlucky bounce. They allowed a 3-0 lead to become 3-2 in barely two minutes, restored a two-goal margin and then watched Toronto erase that one too.
The predicted low-scoring game never developed. What actually emerged was more revealing for Toronto. The Leafs proved they could continue creating offense after Saros stopped the first chance, that McKenna could contribute inside a meaningful comeback and that Matthews could control a game as a distributor before finishing it himself.
The Saros test was real. Toronto passed it by refusing to let the first save end the possession.
Toronto’s New Offense Finally Has a Game to Build From
Four games still tell us very little about what Toronto will look like over an entire season. They tell us more than three did.
McKenna now has his first NHL goal and assist. Nylander has continued producing around a reshaped lineup. Tavares has his first goal of the season. Roslovic supplied a third-period equalizer. Matthews finished with four points without needing to dominate the shot count himself.
Those pieces will not always fit as cleanly as they did during the comeback. Nashville still demonstrated how vulnerable Toronto can look when an opponent protects the middle and turns isolated mistakes into goals.
But the Leafs entered Tuesday trying to discover whether their new combinations could create something coherent against one of the league’s established goaltenders. They left with a 5-4 overtime win after erasing three separate Nashville leads.
The rebuilt offense is still a work in progress. For the first time, Toronto has seen what it looks like when the work starts connecting.
Sources
NHL, October 7, 2026 — Predators-Maple Leafs game recap | Toronto Maple Leafs, October 7, 2026 — McKenna first goal and postgame player notes | Nashville Predators, October 7, 2026 — overtime loss recap | NHL official game summary and shot report, October 6, 2026