TORONTO - The Argonauts may have been more lucky than good Wednesday night, but their victory over the Calgary Stampeders showed the type of character that was completely lacking in Toronto last season.

Jeff Johnson's one-yard TD run with less than two minutes remaining rallied the Argonauts to an exciting 27-24 win over the Stampeders before 20,242 spectators.

Johnson's run capped a four-play, 45-yard drive that put Toronto ahead 25-24 at 13:02 of the fourth before Cleo Lemon hit Chad Owens for the two-point convert after the Argos trailed 24-13 late in the third quarter.

"We were lucky to win that game with the number of mistakes we made early on," Johnson said. "It's a huge win, it's a character win.

"We go back to the film (Thursday) and there will be a lot of critiquing going on. We get that right and we win dominantly. It's just little mistakes here and there. It's not that guys can't get it done physically, it's just mental errors."

Calgary took over at its 31-yard line with 1:47 remaining and Toronto's Evan McCollough's appeared to clinch the win with his second interception of the game with 1:11 left. But after a review the pass was deemed incomplete, giving the Stampeders new life at their own 48-yard line. The visitors couldn't do anything with the second chance and turned the ball over on downs.

However, Toronto could've taken control of the contest early. Twice the Argos drove inside Calgary's six-yard line in the first half, but could only muster a field goal and needed Grant Shaw's 40-yard boot at 13:18 of the second quarter for a 13-10 half-time lead. It came after Calgary's Nik Lewis scored the opening half's only TD on a 39-yard pass from Henry Burris at 11:50.

Burris threw two of his three TD strikes in the third to stake the Stampeders to a 24-13 advantage. Burris finished 20-of-40 passing for 207 yards but also had four interceptions.

Argos head coach Jim Baker, who spent five seasons in Calgary's front office before returning to Toronto in the off-season, said the comeback victory was very beneficial to his team's psyche. Barker took over a Double Blue squad that not only had missed the CFL playoffs the last two seasons but won a combined seven games during that span.

"We beat a team like Calgary that is one of the elite teams in the league and came from behind to do it when we very easily could've folded," Barker said. "I think those kind of things are important as the season goes on because you're going to have situations when you fall behind.

"If one side of the ball isn't playing great the other side picks up the slack and that's the kind of team we have to be. There's going to come a time when we hit all cylinders and everything will be going well. That hasn't happened yet but hopefully sometime."

Lemon finished 18-of-36 for 187 yards and an interception in his third career CFL start. Toronto's top offensive threat was tailback Cory Boyd, who had 142 yards rushing on 20 carries for a second straight 100-yard performance.

Defensive, Toronto did a solid job on Calgary's Joffrey Reynolds. Last year's CFL rushing leader had 44 yards on nine carries.

Both teams were playing on a short week. Toronto was coming off a 36-34 road win in Winnipeg on Friday night while Calgary defeated Hamilton 23-22 at Ivor Wynne Stadium on Saturday.

Calgary (2-1) remains tied for first in the West Division standings with idle Saskatchewan (2-0).

Toronto (2-1) moved atop the East Division standings with its second straight win and first victory in seven games against Calgary. The Argos also captured their first home opener in four decisions.

Shaw kicked four field goals and a single for Toronto. The other points came on three safeties, one short of the CFL record.

Romby Bryant and Deon Murphy scored Calgary's other touchdowns. Rob Maver added a field goal and three converts.

Calgary head coach/GM John Hufnagel was very disappointed with his offence, which mustered just 250 total yards and had five turnovers.

"We just really couldn't establish any consistency, dropped passes, two-plays and out, couldn't get anything going," he said. "When we did get something going at the end of the second quarter and the third quarter, we got back to screwing things up, turning the ball over and penalties.

"Our defence was on the field way too much in the first half and they might have worn down a little bit in the second. It wasn't a good game offensively, that's all I'll say about that. "

Burris was more to the point.

"This is definitely a nightmarish game," he said. "We thought we had a good idea of what they were going to do, we had opportunities there, just didn't make it. I've got to take better care of the ball in certain situations and we can't have those turnovers.

"It seemed like despite what we did, I made some bad decisions trying to get the ball into certain guys but they did a good job of selling things also."

NOTES -- Toronto Blue Jays Jesse Litsch, Casey Janssen and Ricky Romero took in the game . . . This marks just the third time ever that Toronto has opened its home schedule against Calgary. The Stampeders came into this contest with a 1-0-1 record . . . The last time Calgary started a regular season with two straight wins was 2000 . . . Linebacker Leon Joe, tackle Joe Eppele and receivers Chad Lucas and Spencer Watt were Toronto's scratches. Offensive lineman Godfrey Ellis, receivers Landan Talley and Johnny Forzani as well as defensive lineman DeVone Claybrooks didn't dress for Calgary.