Maple Leafs’ John Tavares shows veteran composure in late rally

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Some of the worst hockey the Maple Leafs have played in a 48-hour, five-period stretch under Craig Berube will be in the rear-view mirror when they look at the third period and overtime of Wednesday’s 4-3 win in Washington.

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It was the Leafs’ first road win when trailing by multiple goals with less than five minutes to play since Dec. 6, 2010, also in D.C.

Our takeaways:

JOHNNY ON THE SPOT

His contract status for next season is unknown, but John Tavares is proving he still has a huge role to play on the Leafs.

A lot of this wild comeback went through him, never mind the winning goal, but taking 23 faceoffs, the vast majority, and getting a nice assist on Bobby McMann’s opening goal on their rejigged line with Mitch Marner after the whole team sucked in Tuesday’s 3-0 shutout loss to Ottawa.

It was Tavares’s 77th game winner, tying Patrick Kane for sixth among active NHL skaters and his 18th OT strike. Only Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Brad Marchand and Jaromir Jagr have more.

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It’s clear he’s still got a captain’s calmness and though Auston Matthews now wears the ‘C’ when healthy, there were a lot of short tempers on the Toronto bench that needed cooling as two disallowed goals almost doomed the comeback. Tavares stayed on an even keel while coach Berube was getting very livid with the officials on the ice and war room in Toronto.

“We talked about staying with it,” Tavares told Sportsnet. “Their lead increased and a couple didn’t count, but we found a way. Good character win and bounce back.

“There’s a moment or two (with the disallowed goals) where you don’t love it, but hockey operations and the officials are trying to do their job.”

VISUALLY AGGRAVATING

This can’t be the way the NHL envisioned replay working with such long delays. Once or twice a game is annoying enough, but there ended up being three goal reviews and a double minor wiped out on Wednesday.

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By all means try to get it right, but don’t let teams grow too stiff on the bench, keep fans restless and keep playing Call Me by Blondie on a loop in the arena as they wait for reviewers in Toronto to give a thumbs up or down.

It would seem the calls evened out, but that wasn’t exactly assault and battery by Nic Dowd on Joseph Woll when he tried to avoid the big Toronto defender Jani Hakanpaa and the goalie when Woll lost track of John Carlson’s wicked point drive.

Matthew Knies was correctly absolved of a double minor high stick when his arm inadvertently caught a Washington player in the face, but neither did Knies appear to high stick what would’ve been a third period goal, his blade below the bar. And that had to be the most subtle of kicking motions if Steven Lorentz really meant to direct a bang-bang rebound with his leg as he passed by the net.

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But as two calls had already gone against the Caps, the Leafs couldn’t complain too much in that instance. Knies was the more controversial, initially ruled a goal, thus hard evidence was needed to overturn. It was the downtime that was taking the steam out of the game, though probably helped the tired visitors.

“It is what it is,” William Nylander told media after.

WOLL STANDS TALL

If Ovie falls a goal shy of catching Wayne Gretzky’s record, at least in this season, he might think back to Woll’s extra period stop on Wednesday.

The game was on Ovie’s stick, after a mostly quiet evening, but he had the cannon loaded for No. 864 and to close within 30 of Gretzky and win the night. But Woll came way out and gave the Great Eight nothing to shoot at, the rebound finding its way to Tavares.

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“Joe’s a hell of a goalie and when you have one of the greatest scorers coming in at you, those are the opportunities you relish at this level,” Tavares said.

It was big for Woll’s role in the big picture to follow a rare Anthony Stolarz loss with an effort such as Wednesday’s.

Why Washington’s Logan Thompson didn’t come out to knock the puck away before Tavares caught up to it is a mystery, shades of Ilya Samsonov for Toronto in Game 7 of the playoffs in Boston.

MAX CAN’T GET A BREAK

The comeback win will take some pressure off of Max Domi, who was switched at centre with Tavares in an effort to break an 11-game pointless streak but saw it grow to a career worst 12.

He had a breakaway on Thompson in the first period that might have changed his luck big-time, but couldn’t elevate over the glove. He had another chance with Nylander and Knies, but couldn’t contribute offensively again in Matthews’ absence.

Berube rode the top two lines hard despite them playing the night before, but Marlie call-up Alex Steeves did well in his season debut, almost scoring in the first period.

Hakanpaa also made his season debut, his first game since March with Dallas when his knee acted up. Paired with Morgan Rielly, he played 15:36, with a couple of shots on goal, a block and a minus one.

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