TORONTO _ The Maple Leafs entered Thursday night's game leading the Eastern Conference with 72 goals. The Devils were fourth with 61. And when the teams first played this season, they combined for nine goals.
In other words, the following was not expected.
William Nylander turned, shot and scored to power the Maple Leafs to 1-0 overtime win at Air Canada Centre with 2.2 seconds left on the clock.
It capped a wild overtime that saw the Devils (11-4-3), who had a two-game winning streak snapped on the second game of a four-game road trip, fail on a power play. Frederik Andersen, earning his second shutout of the season, made his 42nd and final save on Taylor Hall at the goalmouth in the waning seconds as the Maple Leafs (13-7-0) won their fifth straight despite playing without injured star center Auston Matthews (upper body) for the fourth straight game.
Schneider stopped 24 shots.
The Devils won the teams' first game this season, also at Toronto, 6-3, on Oct. 11 as Schneider matched his career high with 47 saves.
While Travis Zajac was activated off injured reserve on Thursday, the Devils announced defenseman Mirco Mueller will miss 10-12 weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a fractured left clavicle suffered in Sunday night's 7-5 win at Chicago.
Zajac, 32, in the fifth season of an eight-year, $46 million deal, underwent surgery to repair a torn left pectoral muscle on Aug. 17 and was medically cleared to play on Saturday. He participated in the team's full morning skate and in practices on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"We had kind of an internal timeline of probably closer to three to four months just depending on how things progressed," said Zajac of the original public timeline of him missing four to six months. "We knew it was going to heal properly. It was just how much I was going to be able to push it in the last month and get to where we are now."
He re-entered the lineup centering rookie Jesper Bratt and Drew Stafford, his college teammate at North Dakota, though coach John Hynes said he anticipates eventually reuniting Zajac with Hall and Kyle Palmieri on the top line. No. 1 overall pick Nico Hischier remained in that role on Thursday.
With Zajac in the lineup, Adam Henrique, who had been centering the second line, moved to Brian Boyle's left wing on the third line.
"Travis can do it all," said Boyle, who, while a member of the Maple Leafs, fought Zajac in the third period of the Devils' 4-2 loss at Toronto on March 23. "He's a top-line guy. He can check with the best of them. He produces and, obviously, he's great defensively. He's going to be a huge part going forward."
Only Schneider's acrobatics kept the first period scoreless as he made sprawling saves on three pucks on the goal line.
Schneider, on the ice, stretched to stop James van Riemsdyk's redirection and Tyler Bozak's rebound try at the left post with his stick at 13:06. Then, with 38.3 seconds remaining, Schneider, again on the ice, reached to get his glove on Patrick Marleau's try at the right post.
He had to scramble again on a sequence with just under four minutes to play in a second period in which the Devils outshot the Maple Leafs, 10-4.
Van Riemsdyk, on an odd-man rush, took a shot from the left with the rebound coming out to Bozak, who pushed the puck toward the net with Schneider scrambling to get back into position. As play continued, the puck came to Mitchell Marner in the slot and his shot, with Schneider still not settled, flew over the crease and hit referee Ian Walsh.
It marked the first time this season the Devils had entered the third period in a scoreless tie.
