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Playing the afternoon Next Gen game against the league-leading Winnipeg Jets without Auston Matthews and Chris Tanev, the Toronto Maple Leafs could not overcome the shorthanded lineup and fell 5-2. 

The game started promisingly enough for the Leafs, but a power-play goal late in the first period shifted the tone. Sloppy defense, second-best goaltending, and an offense that didn’t create enough made for a bad combo from the Toronto perspective.

Kyle Connor scored twice, John Tavares scored twice, and Mark Schiefele added a third-period hat trick.

Your game in 10:

1.   Saturday night’s game saw the Maple Leafs fall down 2-0 to the Islanders in the first five minutes of the contest, triggering a Craig Berube timeout to try to wake his team up. It was imperative, then, for the Leafs to get off to a better start in this game, and they did.

It was a fairly low event for the first 10 minutes or so, but as a result, the Jets got very little in the way of dangerous chances, and no goals went in the Toronto net in the opening stretch like on Saturday.

The Max Domi line with Nick Robertson and William Nylander had a solid opening shift that helped set the tone for the game, and the Leafs were asserting themselves physically early on. Philippe Myers and Bobby McMann were throwing their bodies around early and this was a neutral zone/offensive zone start to the game. The Jets didn’t get their first shot on goal until nearly five minutes into the game, so if the objective was to be more responsible with the puck and in their own end to begin, it was mission accomplished.

2.    While there were some moments from the top six, the bottom six probably had the better looks for the Leafs in the first period. Connor Dewar flipped a puck on net from an obscure angle that seemed to confuse Connor Hellebuyck for a moment, causing him to reach behind with the trapper just for good measure.

Later on, Pontus Holmberg sprung Dewar with a stretch pass that set him free for a mini-break behind Neal Pionk and Hadyn Fleury of Winnipeg. Hellebuyck slammed the door on Dewar, who is still stuck on one point in 17 games (he’ll need to bear down at some point, as a five-point 82-game pace won’t cut it).

As for the top six, those moments were okay but nothing too exciting. There were a couple of strong shifts from Toronto’s first line. One saw John Tavares shoulder off contact to tee up Mitch Marner, but Hellebuyck steered it away. The Jets really didn’t get a single chance of note at 5v5 until over the halfway point of the period — a Mason Appleton shot that Adam Lowry deflected, kicking out a rebound for Nino Niederreiter that the Swiss forward couldn’t corral.

In total, the Jets registered just three shots on goal through the first 13-14 minutes of the contest, which was a very focused start for the Maple Leafs at evens.

3.   But then came the special teams. The aforementioned Niederreiter chance saw the forward go sliding into the goal, and the referees hit Marner with a hooking call, although closer examination suggests it may have been a legal stick-check that simply resulted in Niederreiter losing his balance.

Alas, the Leafs were shorthanded with their best PK forward in the box (and were already missing their best PK defenseman). The kill started okay, with decent looks for Mark Schiefele and Kyle Connor turned aside by a sharp Joe Woll, who was getting tested in full for the first time in the game.

However, the far-side linesman kicked Dewar out of the faceoff circle, leading to Steven Lorentz getting cleaned out on the draw (granted, Dewar hasn’t exactly been a beast in the circle this season). The faceoff was won back to Josh Morrissey at the point, where his shot was kicked out by Woll straight to Kyle Connor, with no backside help to contest the loose puck, as Jake McCabe was busy boxing out the front.

Woll played this one strangely, as he seemed to lose track of the puck and freeze in place, leaving the net open, which Connor is highly equipped to capitalize on.

The Jets led in a game they had not done much in previously, but they did use the momentum generated from the PPG to close the period well. They got several more looks in the waning moments and finished the period with 11 shots, eight of them coming in the final ~six minutes of the period. The Leafs, on the other hand, didn’t create a whole lot and headed into the break down a goal.

4.    The positive momentum that the Jets generated from the end of the first period carried into the early second. Very early in the frame, Marner rotated high to receive a puck at the top of the offensive zone, and as the last man back, he took an ill-advised shot right into the body of Mark Schiefele, which kicked out into the neutral zone and created a rush the other way.

Marner tracked back evenly with Schiefele, but Kyle Connor was able to win a footrace with Oliver Ekman-Larsson, creating an opportunity if Schiefele could shift the puck over. Scheifele did, flipping it through Marner to Connor on the backdoor. The winger didn’t get a great tip on it, but it deflected through Woll, who again could’ve played it better.

The shooting threat was mostly neutralized, with Marner’s backcheck forcing Scheifele wide and Scheifele posting up looking for the pass option with his back to goal, but Woll ended up beaten by a redirect right into the middle of the net.

5.    Not long afterward, Max Domi attempted to get the Monday afternoon Scotiabank Arena crowd into the game by fighting Alex Iafallo. Domi certainly instigated the fight, though he was hit with a two-minute “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty rather than an instigator on top of the five for fighting. That put the Leafs on the PK yet again at a crucial moment in the game, trailing by a couple of goals and now on their heels.

This was a better kill from Toronto, getting the benefit of a pair of sloppy turnovers from Nikolaj Ehlers, but Marner helped redeem himself on this kill. He used his stick well and got a breakaway opportunity following a great diving shot block by David Kämpf. The puck pinballed out to center, where Marner had a step on Neal Pionk, skating in for a breakaway before Pionk made a terrific recovery and stick-lift.

I’m not sure how different this was from the penalty on Marner in the first period. I don’t think this was a wrong no-call, as Pionk’s stick never contacted Marner’s hands, but the inconsistency was glaring. The this-time legal stick lift kept the game at 2-0, but the Leafs were able to kill off this penalty and get back on even footing.

6.    The successful PK began to help blow the winds in Toronto’s direction, especially after they got handed an opportunity by the stick of Mason Appleton, which clipped Morgan Rielly up high, drawing blood. Handed a four-minute PP, the Leafs went to work and scored a pretty goal.

Nylander and Marner made two change-of-sides passes, the latter from Marner found Tavares on the backdoor through Hadyn Fleury, and Tavares tapped it into the empty net:

With that goal, his 200th as a Leaf, Tavares became the fifth player in NHL history to score 200+ goals with two separate franchises, joining Wayne Gretzky, Lanny McDonald, Mark Messier, and Keith Tkachuk.

The Leafs scored that PPG in the first two minutes, so they still had the second PP to work with. Craig Berube kept his top unit on the ice, but their second attempt wasn’t as sharp. The second unit came on the ice to finish, but Toronto did not record a shot. Still, they halved the lead and now had momentum going.

7.     The shot in the arm provided by the power play goal was palpable as the Leafs began to assert themselves over the second half of the second period. Domi had a give-and-go with Myers that created a Grade-A scoring chance, turned away by Hellebuyck. The Marner line got several good looks on one shift, and then Dylan DeMelo’s diving shot block was a key moment in denying McCabe a rebound goal that would’ve evened the score.

The ice was tilted towards the Maple Leafs, and Craig Berube could feel it, loading up with a super line of Marner, Nylander, and Tavares together late in that period. Winnipeg, thanks in part to their star goalie, withstood the push.

The Jets had a few looks of their own during this period, with Woll making one great save on Iafallo after a Morrissey point shot created a rebound.

Toronto headed into the locker room down 2-1, feeling like they were firmly knocking on the door.

8.     The progress the Leafs seemed to have made in the late second period didn’t translate over to the third, and the lack of push coming out for the third period down 2-1 at home was one of the most disappointing aspects of this game.

Winnipeg got a few decent looks early on in the period while the ice reverted from a tilt in Toronto’s direction to a more even playing field. About 3.5 minutes into the third period, Gabriel Vilardi made a sweet play that swung the game.

Vilardi received a flip pass that got by OEL and then turned McCabe inside out before dishing a backhand pass to Mark Schiefele, who had beaten Bobby McMann to the backdoor for a tap-in goal.

It’s a clumsy display from the Toronto defense but also a really high-skill play from an underrated player in Vilardi, who is an impactful piece when he’s healthy. The third goal really seemed to take the wind out of Toronto’s sails and the building generally, a bit of a dagger after the Leafs had been seemingly building in the latter half of the second period.

McCabe was at the center of a couple of goals against in this one and has now been outscored 13-9 since he returned from injury in mid-December (and that’s in just seven games). After a nice return game versus the Ducks, McCabe appears to be trying to find his rhythm again after the two weeks off.

9.    Indeed, the Leafs didn’t have much in the tank for a comeback. They did get a 2v1 created by Nylander, but his shot was denied by Connor Hellebuyck. Not long before, Nino Niederreiter had a prime rebound opportunity that he sent high and wide as the two teams traded chances. The Leafs did get a power play opportunity to try and claw back into the game after Dylan DeMelo put the puck over the glass, but in a sign of where things were by this point in the game, the best opportunity of the Toronto power play went to the Jets.

Marner failed to keep the puck in at the line, gifting the Jets a 2v1 in the other direction. Adam Lowry sauced a pass across to Alex Iafallo, and Woll made a sprawling post-to-post save with his mask, his best stop of the night. Meanwhile, Toronto generated little in the offensive zone with the man advantage, and they exited the PP, having been closer to conceding than scoring a goal. Not what you want!

Time was beginning to dwindle in the contest, and the Jets slammed the door with a fourth goal. McCabe lost the puck at the point, it trickled down the ice, and Josh Morrissey won a race against Simon Benoit to retrieve it. Morrissey found Mark Schiefele all alone in front.

The first shot was saved by Woll, who showed good extension on the stop. The puck laid free on the goal line, which Schiefele jammed at a second time, lodging under Woll’s pad. Then came a third time where Schiefele whacked Woll’s pad, jarred it free, and the puck trickled across the line.

It’s anyone’s guess if the consequential whack would’ve been ruled goalie interference, but, oddly, Craig Berube didn’t challenge. The goal standing meant it was 4-1 Winnipeg with eight minutes to go; the odds of a comeback from three down with eight to go with Connor Hellebuyck in the other net were so low that a challenge seemed like the only choice, but Berube didn’t contest it. Strange call.

10.     Toronto did get one back, as John Tavares scored with a bit over six minutes to go in the game. Berube went back to uniting the Marner/Tavares/Nylander line and a pair of Jets caught deep in the OZ gave the Leafs numbers the other way, with McCabe joining the rush. Nylander fed McCabe, who found Tavares streaking down the center lane. Tavares ripped a shot by Hellebuyck for his second of the game, trimming the lead to 4-2 Winnipeg.

Not much happened after that goal. The Leafs did possess the puck quite a bit after Berube pulled the goalie, but it didn’t lead to much in the way of chances. Winnipeg was fundamentally sound defensively, breaking plays up and clearing to the neutral zone. Eventually, Kyle Connor won a neutral zone battle and got the puck to Schiefele, who found the empty net for a natural hat trick, his third goal of the third period. 5-2 was the final, the Leafs’ second straight loss in regulation (both at home).

The Leafs’ first Christmas wish is for better health in 2025, as they were missing their superstar 1C (who remains in a worrying situation with his lingering injury), arguably their 1D (hopefully, it’s a short-term situation with Tanev), and arguably their 1G (Stolarz) for this clash against a mostly healthy, league-leading Jets team.

Woll needs to prove this two-game slip is only a blip when play resumes next weekend, and the Leafs need to clean up some details defensively, as the amount of rush offense against has spiked significantly recently after they spent most of the first 30 games keeping it quite stingy in this regard. Those areas of the game — rush offense against, goaltending, and not quite enough shots on goal/too many missed nets for all the zone time they had (a theme for the team in the first half at 5v5) — tipped the game for Winnipeg despite the Leafs controlling over 60% of the shot attempts in all three periods at evens.

Last but certainly not least, a safe and happy holiday to all of the readers at MLHS.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

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