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The Toronto Maple Leafs are still breathing in the playoff race thanks to a breath-taking hockey game with the Ottawa Senators.

Both teams put on a hard-hitting, fast-paced display on Saturday night that saw the Leafs fight back from a two-goal deficit to take a 5-4 win with two quick goals early in the third period. After they regained the lead, the Leafs held off the determined Senators for the last 17 minutes of the game.

That included a power play in the last 1 minute, 27 seconds when Leaf defenceman Ian White took a hooking penalty. The Sens pulled goaltender Martin Gerber for a two-man advantage but the Leafs, backed by another outstanding night from goaltender Vesa Toskala, held them off for their third win in a row and fourth consecutive win over the Senators.

Considering that captain Mats Sundin is still out with a groin injury, along with forward Nik Antropov (knee), the Leafs' 3-1 record in Sundin's absence is remarkable. There is hope Sundin will be ready to play by Tuesday, as his groin injury improved over the weekend and he expects to take part in a practice on Monday.

As always since their belated playoff run started, the Leafs did not get any help elsewhere in the Eastern Conference. The Boston Bruins, who are tied with the Philadelphia Flyers in points in the last two playoff spots, managed to get a point after losing a shootout to the Montreal Canadiens. And the Florida Panthers stayed one point ahead of the Leafs by beating the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Nevertheless, this sets up the home-and-home series between the Leafs and Bruins on Tuesday and Thursday as the make-or-break point of their season. The Leafs have 80 points, four behind the Bruins, and need to win both games in regulation time to have a reasonable shot at the postseason.

"Yeah, for sure," Leafs centre Matt Stajan said when the importance of the Bruins series was brought up after the game. Then a big cheer went up in the next room where Stajan's teammates were watching the Canadiens beat the Bruins in a shootout.

"It looks like we got some help," Stajan said as the cheer rang out. "Those games are a huge four points. We've got to win both in regulation to be there."

Against the Senators, the Leafs helped themselves. They went into the game tired after beating the Buffalo Sabres on Friday night and had to withstand a physical onslaught from the Senators in the first period.

"They came out hammering us, which was the good game plan [because] we played the night before," Leafs head coach Paul Maurice said. "We weathered that, we were down one after one [period] and we were fine. Then we were able to do some things and our goalie was awesome."

It looked like the Senators had the game in hand late in the second period of a rollicking hockey game, as they scored three times in less than three minutes to take a 4-2 lead thanks to the Leafs' inability to stay out of the penalty box. But Darcy Tucker scored for the Leafs with 54 seconds left to cut the Ottawa lead to one. That capped a stretch of four goals in four minutes.

"I think that goal was huge, for sure," Leaf centre Matt Stajan said. "But we weren't going to die. We weren't going to quit. Even though we had a few blunders in the second, we came out hard [in the third period]."

The Leafs scored two goals in less than a minute early in the third period to snatch the lead back. Dominic Moore grabbed a giveaway by Sens defenceman Andrei Mezaros to set up Jiri Tlusty, who tied the score at 1:33. Then Matt Stajan and Jason Blake worked a two-on-one perfectly off another Sens turnover to give the Leafs a 5-4 lead with Stajan's goal at 2:14.

As expected in a game between these rivals, the first two periods had lots of hitting, up-and-down action and a playoff atmosphere. Urged on by a sellout crowd of 20,183 that had the usual large complement of Leaf fans, who made themselves heard by booing their favourite target, Sens captain Daniel Alfredsson, the teams went at each other hard right from the opening faceoff.

With the Leafs coming off a game Friday night, the Senators looked fresher and held the edge in the physical play in the first period. The best hit was by Senators defenceman Anton Volchenkov. He gave Leaf rookie Alex Foster, who was playing in his third NHL game, a welcome-to-the-big-leagues moment when the kid came over the Ottawa blue line with his head down. Volchenkov flattened the 23-year-old Foster with a bone-rattling body check.

Alfredsson opened the scoring for the Senators. Jason Spezza beat Moore on a faceoff in the Leafs zone and the puck went to defenceman Mike Commodore. His shot was stopped by Toskala but the puck bounced in front, where Alfredsson batted it into the net for his 38th goal of the season.

Senators forward Chris Kelly was lost seven minutes into the first period when a slapshot by Leaf defenceman Pavel Kubina went off his left foot. Kelly had to be helped to the dressing room and did not return to the game.

By the end of the first period, the Senators held a 14-9 edge in shots but the Leafs stayed in the game thanks to Toskala's work in goal.

The Leafs, though, found a second wind in the second period and tied the score on a power-play goal of their own. When a shot by Kubina hit the end boards and bounced in front of the net, Kyle Wellwood slapped in the rebound at 4:14 to make the score 1-1.

Alexander Steen put the Leafs ahead 2-1 with a power-play goal at 12:39 as the Leafs looked poised to take charge of the game.

But the powerful Senators squelched those hopes quickly. Cory Stillman scored on his own rebound on a power-play to tie the score at 15:04. And 58 seconds later, Martin Lapointe scored to give the Senators a 3-2 lead, which they increased to 4-2 with a power-play goal by Dany Heatley at 17:31.

Then the Senators let it get away with a few giveaways, which cost them a chance to stay close to the Canadiens for the Northeast Division and conference lead.

"If we want to win down the stretch to the playoffs, we can't give up easy goals like we did in third period," Alfredsson said. "When you're up by two, you have to win."