Dorsett's 3-point night helps Canucks get past Maple Leafs
Derek Dorsett took the blame for the Vancouver Canucks' last loss because of his undisciplined play.
He made up for it Saturday night.
The bruising forward scored his first goal in 24 games and added two assists as the Canucks downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-1.
On Thursday night, Dorsett was sitting in the penalty box for a retaliatory slash when Los Angeles opened the scoring and skated away to a 4-0 win over the Canucks.
"I felt bad about the penalty I took," Dorsett said after the first three-point game of his NHL career. "I apologized to the guys in the locker room. That's what good teams do. They stick with you. The guys supported me and I wanted to make sure I came with a good effort."
Chris Higgins, Jannik Hansen and Shawn Matthias, into an empty net, also scored for Vancouver, and Eddie Lack made 28 saves.
"We weren't really happy with the L.A. game," Lack said. "I felt like we came out hard from the start today and we showed that we wanted this one."
Phil Kessel scored for Toronto, and Jonathan Bernier made 31 saves. The Leafs were coming off a 6-3 loss in Calgary and have just five wins in their last 32 games.
"We talked about how unacceptable our effort was last night and the compete level was not there," Toronto captain Dion Phaneuf said. "Tonight, it was a lot better, but it's disappointing to not come out of here with a point or two points."
Vancouver scored twice in a 32-second span in the second period to take a 3-0 lead.
The Leafs had a number of chances on a power play, including Tyler Bozak's shot that rang off the crossbar, but the Canucks broke back on a 2-on-1 the other way, with Dorsett burying his sixth of the season at 6:09 just as the penalty expired.
Hansen then made it 3-0 moments later into a gaping net after Ronalds Kenins was pushed into Bernier.
Toronto had a 5-on-3 man advantage for 25 seconds as part of its four straight power plays in the period, but was unable to get anything past Lack despite some lengthy stretches of sustained pressure.
Canucks forward Zack Kassian and Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf were involved in an altercation after the whistle with 3:27 left. One of the linesmen tumbled to the ice under Kassian, who was given a minor for roughing, a misconduct and a game misconduct, while Phaneuf escaped with a minor.
NOTES: Higgins suited up for the Canucks after missing three games with a lower-body injury. ... Nazem Kadri, who was scratched for three straight games after showing up late for a team meeting, returned to Toronto's lineup. ... The Leafs haven't won in Vancouver since 2003.
