Kessel gets 26th, Maple Leafs score twice in 19 seconds in 4-1 win over Senators

Maple Leafs score 2 in 19 seconds to beat Senators

OTTAWA — Phil Kessel got his 26th goal and John Mitchell and Mikhail Grabovski scored 19 seconds apart in the second period, leading the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 4-1 win over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night.

Kessel beat Brian Elliott for his fourth goal in four games 11:20 in. Mitchell made it 2-0 when he scored 4:33 into the second. His goal had not even been announced when Grabovski increased the lead to 3-0 with his ninth goal at 4:52.

Jonas Gustavsson stopped 30 shots for Toronto, which is last overall in the Eastern Conference with 60 points but has won four of five. Rickard Wallin scored into an empty net for the Maple Leafs, who began their current 5-2 run with a 2-1 shootout win in Ottawa on March 6.

Gustavsson has won four in a row, a personal streak that began with Toronto’s win 10 days earlier at Scotiabank Place.

Andy Sutton scored his first Ottawa goal late in the second. Elliott stopped 26 shots for the Senators, who lost their third in a row. Ottawa, which lost its last two games of a three-game trip to western Canada, has gone 1-5-1 since the Olympic break.

Nick Foligno and Chris Campoli both returned to the Senators’ lineup. Foligno missed 13 games with a broken right leg. Campoli was out for eight games because of a sprained ligament in his left knee.

Kessel teammed up with linemates Tyler Bozak and Nikolai Kulemin to open the scoring 11:20 in. Kulemin took Bozak’s pass in his own zone and rushed the puck to the left side of Ottawa’s zone before feeding a pass to the slot, where Kessel snapped a shot past Elliott into the top right corner.

Mitchell made it 2-0 in the second when he sped past Sutton’s attempt to check him into the boards along the right side before beating Elliott with a wrist shot for his fifth goal at 4:33.

The Maple Leafs increased their lead to 3-0 just 19 seconds later when Grabovski scored his second goal in his last three games. Grabovski he finished off Luca Caputi’s centering pass at 4:52 after the Toronto rookie stripped the puck off Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson behind the net.

Gustavsson made a fine save on Chris Kelly’s short-handed chance from the slot midway through the second but lost his shutout bid late in the middle period.

Sutton, who was acquired in a trade with the New York Islanders on Mar. 2, scored his fifth goal of the season — his first in six games with the Senators — with 1:34 left in the second to draw Ottawa within two.

NOTES: The Maple Leafs won four of six against Ottawa to claim the season series between the provincial rivals. … Senators C Mike Fisher took part in the pregame skate but was left out of the lineup because of an upper-body injury. … Ottawa D Filip Kuba (lower-body injury) missed his sixth straight game. RW Shean Donovan was a healthy scratch.