TORONTO — Auston Matthews scored three times to increase his NHL-leading goals total to 31; Jack Campbell made 27 saves to set an NHL record for consecutive victories to start a season and the Toronto Maple Leafs outlasted the Ottawa Senators 6-5 on Saturday night.
Campbell became the first goalie with a victory in each of his first 11 appearances as the first-place Maple Leafs continued their dominance over the rest of the North Division.
“It was a fun game, honestly. It’s not fun giving up goals. I expect more out of myself,” Campbell said. “But Ottawa came to play and so did we. And I just think the guys played so well in front of me tonight.”
Mitch Marner added a goal and three assists for Toronto. The Maple Leafs have won six straight to improve to 28-10-3, and they are 5-2-1 against Ottawa this season.
“We started off really well,” Matthews said. “It definitely wasn’t a pretty one, but we stuck with it.”
Matthews had the third hat trick of his career and also had an assist for a four-point night. He has five straight 30-goal seasons to start his career.
“It felt really good,” Matthews said. “I was fortunate to be on the receiving end of a few nice passes.”
Campbell broke the mark of 10 wins to start a season set by Montreal’s Carey Price in 2016-17. And Ilya Mikheyev and Zach Hyman each had a goal and an assist. With Saturday’s win, he moved within two of team leader, Frederik Andersen, who is 13-8-2. Michael Hutchinson also has appeared in eight games this season in net for Toronto.
Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson and Connor Brown each had a goal and an assist and Alex Formenton and Josh Norris also scored for Ottawa.
Anton Forsberg stopped 32 shots for the Senators. They have lost four straight and are 1-5-1 over their past seven.
Brown set a franchise record by scoring in a seventh straight game — breaking a tie with Batherson, Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley, Daniel Alfredsson and Bob Kudelski.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.