Stars Show Resiliency to Beat Maple Leafs

The Dallas Stars showed that they weren't ready to enter the playoffs with a whimper Monday, coming back from three goals down and then two goals down to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-5.

A season ago, the Dallas Stars were in a similar position, locked into the second seed in the Central Division with "meaningless" games to finish out the regular season, just waiting for the playoffs to begin. What ensued was an eight game losing streak and an incredibly tough task of starting Game 1 against Colorado with the burden of having to forget all about that and flip a switch.

This season, the narrative has been much different, and that continued with their incredible comeback Monday night. When things didn't matter whatsoever for the standings, Dallas fought back to earn the win. Meanwhile, for the Maple Leafs, it was a perfect encapsulation into a horrible, rotten no good kind of season.

Toronto stormed out to a 3-0 lead after one period that started with an early power play goal from John Tavares. Jacob Quillan scored his first NHL goal, and William Nylander bookended it with a goal in tight to make it look like the rout was on.

The Stars answered back, though, in the second period thanks to an all-world period from Mavrik Borque. Borque opened the scoring after intercepting an ill-advised pass from Nylander and beating Leafs goaltender Artur Akhtyamov, who was making his second NHL start.

Borque followed it up less than five minutes later with a second goal off a rebound shot from Jason Robertson to cut the lead to 3-2. Then, Borque added a secondary assist on the game-tying goal from Robertson, who has his mom in attendance.

At 3-3 in the third period, the Leafs once again pulled away quickly, with a two-on-one cashed in by Max Domi, and later, a goal from Jason's brother Nick Robertson, who gave their mom yet another reason to celebrate in the stands.

Now trailing 5-3 out of nowhere, the Stars could have easily rolled over and surrendered the game, but Wyatt Johnston added a power play goal to what already is a franchise record number, and then Arttu Hyry tied the game just over a minute later.

The winning goal came from no other than Borque, who completed the first hat trick of his NHL career and capped off his four point night with an exclamation point. The Stars and Casey DeSmith shut the door for the final five minutes and sent Dallas into the regular season finale on a four game winning streak.

The Stars head to Buffalo for a game that will be significant for the Sabres in their standings positioning in the Atlantic Division, and will be one last tune-up before a grueling series against the Minnesota Wild awaits the Stars.