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American Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and your Toronto Maple Leafs are in first place in the Atlantic Division.

We hope Matthew Knies is okay, but that incident aside, this was a really fun game. The Leafs played with all sorts of jam. Their stars came up big, Joseph Woll was excellent in net, the kids were exciting, and they secured a relatively tidy 3-0 win against a good Vegas team.

Your game in 10:

1.   A big story coming into this game was the red-hot Vegas power play, which ranked second overall in the league coming into this one (and first on the road). For a Leafs team already missing half(!) of their forward group, they could ill-afford to give Vegas a few freebies on the man advantage.

Making matters even worse – Matthews and Kampf have been two of the Leafs‘ best penalty-killing forwards so far this season. This was a big test, and it came up right away as Morgan Rielly took a penalty barely two minutes into the game, giving Vegas an early opportunity to take the lead against a banged-up Leafs team.

The Leafs started with the usual Jake McCabe–Chris Tanev pairing on defense as well as Dewar alongside Marner up front. The best early chance was Marner’s off the rush; Dewar changed during it, and the next penalty killer up was Pontus Holmberg, as Marner was stuck on the ice. Vegas generated a good minute of zone time, with Conor Timmins matched up against Jack Eichel. Timmins did a great job closing the lane and forcing him to pass.

For the final 20 seconds of the kill after Holmberg cleared the puck, Matthew Knies and Steven Lorentz went out with the McCabe-Tanev pairing. It was a big kill early to get into the game, and a few shifts later, the Leafs got a little lucky when Keegan Kolesar hit the post on a bit of a fluke play off the rush. The Leafs then started to create some chances.

2.   On the same shift where Kolesar hit the post, William Nylander later took the puck and went down on a clean 2v1 with Holmberg, where he shockingly elected to pass despite Noah Hanifin clearly giving him the shot. Not to be denied, on Nylander’s next shift, he took the puck and challenged Alex Pietrangelo 1v1 off the rush, taking him wide and using his body to protect the puck.

We’ve said it for a few years now, but Nylander is one of the better players at driving wide in the league; he’s really strong on his skates in those scenarios. He beat Pietrangelo wide with ease, then made a beautiful pass to a trailing Fraser Minten (on the ice for six seconds) right in the slot, where he one-timed it home.

One of Minten’s best attributes is his shot – he can really rip it – and he made no mistake on this one, burying it cleanly home for his first goal in the NHL. It was a great moment for Minten and a beautiful setup by Nylander.

3.   The goal went to the Leafs’ legs for a few shifts, but they couldn’t create much out of their pressure. Vegas started leaning on them with their older, heavier team. They created some turnovers in the neutral zone on a young and inexperienced forward group, but the Leafs’ veteran defense held steady, and Joseph Woll was good when called on, although he wasn’t particularly challenged in the first period.

As Vegas mounted some pressure, Nylander again went out and generated a great response shift, almost scoring on a shot that handcuffed Adin Hill and bounced over the net. He dominated the puck for the entirety of his shift.

Marner then had a great chance off the rush, cutting in and seeming to catch Vegas off-guard. Dewar hit Rielly with a good backside pass, and Rielly had a clean 1v1 look on Hill but missed the net.

Finally, in the final minute, the Leafs threw back-to-back hits – the first by Simon Benoit, the second by Nikita Grebenkin (which was definitely a penalty). As Vegas converged for a scrum in response, Conor Timmins took the puck and went down on a 2v1 with Robertson, where Robertson got off a good one-timer but was stopped.

The Leafs created several good chances, were essentially even with Vegas over the course of the period at 5v5, had a good penalty kill, and held the lead. Overall, it was a pretty good period.

4.   The start of the second period was a different story. Vegas hemmed the Leafs in for long stretches, and the Leafs were not only unable to break out cleanly, but they couldn’t sustain any offensive-zone pressure. Shot attempts were 15-5 for Vegas in just under eight minutes of 5v5 play to start the second period, and Woll made one particularly big save on a William Karlsson one-timer in the slot.

Short of the shifts where Marner or Nylander carried the play themselves, the Leafs were struggling to break Vegas’ pressure with the long change in the second period and leaned on a lot of bend-don’t-break defense. As they couldn’t sustain pressure, the Leafs’ lines got a little scrambled, and Minten ended up centering McMann and Marner for a shift. On the next shift, Grebenkin made a great diving backcheck to break up a Vegas 2v1.

5.  Midway through the game, everything turned when Zach Whitecloud smoked Matthew Knies on a hit where he clearly left his feet. Simon Benoit came racing in and ragdolled Whitecloud. The Leafs, as a team, responded appropriately. But Knies was hurt on the play; Whitecloud got him high because he left his feet.

I want physicality in hockey – I want it to remain in place, and we have to be careful about the hits we scrutinize at times – but the player throwing the hit can’t leave his feet. This has never been allowed in the sport. Whitecloud full-on jumped and tagged Knies high, and it has to be a penalty every time.

Instead, after the league reviewed it, it was not deemed a penalty, and the Leafs were not only down a forward but had to kill a penalty because Benoit instigated the fight. I can’t wait for the next big Jake McCabe hit where he gets jumped afterward and the Leafs don’t receive a power play out of it (it happened multiple times last season).

6.   I loved the Leafs’ response to the hit. They stepped up immediately and carried it forward afterward.

They killed the penalty off, first and foremost. That’s a big kill for several reasons, but when the team is penalized for sticking up for a teammate, you want to see the team rally around it and kill it off. They dug in and did just that.

And there was also the jam they showed immediately afterward. Oliver Ekman-Larsson sent Brett Howden flying in a scrum, and John Tavares went barreling in and grappled a player to the ground. McCabe was waiting for Whitecloud when he came out of the box and had words for him.

On a separate play, Pavel Dorofyev poked Woll, and McCabe was having absolutely none of it, starting a big scrum. Benoit threw his body around whenever someone approached him. The Leafs were relatively under control, but they were pissed and physical; they weren’t lying down and accepting it.

This transition started last season, but it really is night and day when we compare how soft this franchise used to be.

7.   After the game settled down a bit, Conor Timmins took a bad penalty when Ivan Barbashev tried to reverse hit him. Instead of bracing for it, Timmins wrapped his arms around and threw Barbashev down.

That’s the kind of bad penalty you want to avoid, but once again, the Leafs’ penalty kill was up to the challenge. There were a lot of unsung heroes in this game, but the penalty kill, including Woll, was first for me. Vegas has one of the best power plays in the league, but the Leafs completely suffocated them.

The pre-scout was really sharp; they played tight in the house area and were smart about pressuring the half-wall, challenging Jack Eichel but allowing some other Vegas players to hold it on the perimeter. Anytime the Leafs did break, Woll was a vacuum who soaked up pucks and killed plays.

8.  Matthew Knies did not return for the third period, and now the Leafs, already shorthanded, were playing with 11 forwards. The next goal in the game was critical.

A few minutes into the period, the Leafs finally went to their first power play and made it count. The power play itself was a bit chaotic; the Leafs created a few good chances early, and then Vegas countered with a 2v1 that they strangely overcommitted to, as Alex Pietrangelo joined as a trailer. When the puck went into the corner after Vegas missed their chance, Tavares beat Pietrangelo to the puck and simply flung it down the wall to Marner, who went on a clean 2v1 with Nylander and passed it over.

Nylander had so much time with the puck that he didn’t take a stride at literally any point; he just starred at Hill with his stick cocked back, ready to shoot until he found a spot he liked, and he then ripped it through Hill. Nylander is already up to 13 goals this season and is looking as dangerous as ever.

9.   That was a much-needed insurance marker, and while Vegas made an initial push right after the Leafs made it 2-0, Woll weathered it. The Leafs managed to suffocate the game from there.

The Leafs dumped it in a ton and grinded. Nikita Grebenkin almost scored on a breakaway, and I found myself feeling, as the final five minutes approached, that the game was very much sealed off.

Without Knies, Berube tried to keep the lines as consistent as possible. Fraser Minten was earning shifts in the top six, playing 15:43 on the night. He stepped up for Knies, and the Leafs leaned on the Dewar line as a checking line. Marner played over 10 minutes against Eichel and kept him at bay. Vegas was generating nothing of quality. Shot attempts were an even 16-16 at 5v5 in the period. The Leafs drew another power play at one point. 

Eventually, Pontus Holmberg potted an empty netter for his first of the season to ice the game. Marner and Tavares assisted on the goal, capping two-point nights for each of them.

That’s a great third period for a new, largely young, and inexperienced group. The Leafs’ stars drove the bus. The veterans on defense were solid. And the kids followed.

The second period got away from them, but the Leafs dug in for the third, and it wasn’t particularly nerve-wracking.

10.   Joseph Woll was so, so good in this game. He is so calm and makes things look so easy that it isn’t always appreciated when he plays so well. This was a tidy 31-save shutout, and a perfect penalty kill against an elite power play. The Leafs’ netminding situation doesn’t need to be a controversy or a goalie fight. The Leafs have two excellent goalies and should continue to platoon them.

A few other notes: Simon Benoit crushed Knights players all game and eventually drew a penalty after one big hit. His return was a physical one.

This was easily Connor Dewar’s best game of the season so far; he looked far more confident, was flying, and was comfortable in the middle. He played nearly 16 minutes and helped create a number of offensive plays by going to the dirty areas.

The third-highest Leafs forward in time on ice was… Pontus Holmberg. He was steady all night. It remains to be seen how much offense he can contribute, but he takes good NHL shifts, and the Leafs need it right now with all their injuries. He deserved the empty netter.

Mitch Marner and William Nylander led the way in terms of their ice time and their play. The Leafs received a lot of good efforts tonight, but their stars were stars. When that is the case, the Leafs generally win.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

 

Game Highlights with Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

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