Maple Leafs’ center Scott Laughton celebrates after his goal against Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen in Toronto’s 4-1 win Thursday in Raleigh. (Karl DeBlaker / AP Photo)

RALEIGH — The Hurricanes outshot, outchanced and generally outplayed the visiting Maple Leafs on Thursday at Lenovo Center. They still trailed for all but 53 seconds in a 4-1 loss.

Bobby McMann scored twice for Toronto, including on the game’s second shift, and Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen’s winless drought hit six games.

“It doesn’t look good,” Andersen said. “Obviously, we’re not getting the wins with me in net lately, but I still feel like I’ve got my game, maybe not perfectly where I wanted, but … I’ve had worse stretches where things have looked better and got more wins. So that’s how I look at it — try to be positive and move on.”

After McMann was left alone in the slot, shot off the post and saw the puck bounce in off the back of Andersen, the Maple Leafs doubled the lead at 11:45 when defenseman Philippe Myers dump-in hit the glass behind the Carolina net and popped right in front of Andersen. Scott Laughton was alone to bang it in for his second goal of the lead and a 2-0 Toronto lead.

“I think when you start right away and you’re down, that’s just tough,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “You’re ready to go, and then the first one goes in, then that weird bounce. Now it’s just — it was an uphill battle right from the start.”

Every start in the past month has been a battle for Andersen.

He went 1-4-2 in November with an .862 save percentage, numbers that look particularly bad when compared to what Brendan Bussi and Pyotr Kochetkov — a combined 11-1-0 this season — have done when in net.

But the Hurricanes came to the defense of their goaltender after the game.

“Freddie was fine,” captain Jordan Staal said. “There was obviously a terrible bounce on the one and a couple other ones, but I think we’ve got to score more than one to win games, and we didn’t help him much either.”

The one goal came late in the first period when Sebastian Aho carried the puck into the Toronto zone and centered to Shayne Gostisbehere in the slot. Gostisbehere got around Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly and managed to curl a pass across to Seth Jarvis, who scored his 16th goal of the season to halve the deficit at 15:45 of the first.

But the Maple Leafs — who scored on their first shot for their fourth consecutive game —extended their lead in the second period.

First, Matthew Knies outmuscled Aho to create a partial breakaway and went to his backhand and scored on Andersen to make it 3-1 at 4:44 of the middle frame.

Then Auston Matthews, hemmed in his own end much of the night, found himself on a 3-on-1 rush and scored off a Max Domi pass to push the lead to 4-1 just past the midway point of regulation.

The Hurricanes were unable to regain their footing, in part because of an 0-for-3 night on the power play. After scoring on the power play in three straight, Carolina has now gone three without converting with the man advantage.

“Our power play could have got us going a little bit,” said Staal, who joined the first unit as a faceoff expert yet was tossed from the circle at the start of Carolina’s first two chances with the extra man. “I think there’s a few other opportunities to kind of get going and get some momentum in this building, which we love to play and do, but just really didn’t. There was no spark tonight.”

Any spark they might have had was extinguished in the opening minute.

“(I’m) just trying to stay with it and know that things will turn,” Andersen said. “It’s funny game, so you’ve got to stick with it.”

Notes: K’Andre Miller did not play due to illness. … Maple Leafs goalie Joseph Woll left the game with a lower-body injury after two periods after stopped 22 of 23 shots. … Former Hurricanes Nicolas Roy and Max Domi each had two assists.