The Toronto Maple Leafs were playing in a rare Sunday night game after not playing on Saturday night. As for the Utah Hockey Club, they are coming off a win last night against the Pittsburgh Penguins and are on the second half of the back-to-back. Utah is now the 40th NHL franchise to play the Maple Leafs at home in their storied history.
Toronto will look to avoid a trap game from Utah, who will likely be tired, especially their goalie Karel Vejmelka, who started in both games on the back-to-back. The Nylander brothers had a night to remember with both William Nylander and Alex Nylander playing on the same team for the first time in their NHL careers.
Game Recap
The Maple Leafs come into this game with six forwards injured and Ryan Reaves suspended. Within three minutes of the game, Pontus Holmberg caught an edge while trying to beat an icing and fell shoulder-first into the boards. He was helped up off the ice by Nylander and headed to the bench. He didn’t leave the game and took part in his regular shifts after the fall. Utah took two penalties within the first 15 minutes of the first. However, they played very well defensively and shut down both Maple Leafs power plays (PP); the second one they didn’t allow a shot.
Related: Getting to Know the Newest Maple Leaf Alex Nylander
Late in the first, Holmberg took a penalty, giving Utah their first power play of the game. Only a few seconds into the PP, a shot from the point banked off of Logan Cooley at the side of the net and beat Joseph Woll to give Utah a 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
After a fairly low event period, the second period had a lot more energy, especially from the Maple Leafs. Toronto was finally able to get on the board with breakaway goal from Mitch Marner, which came from a beautiful sauce pass from John Tavares. The second may have been one of the worst of Utah’s season.
They took four penalties and turned a 1-0 lead into a 3-1 deficit rather quickly. Marner found the back of the net for his second of the night and Nylander, who stole the puck and created space to beat Vejmelka on a breakaway. The Maple Leafs dominated the entire second period in every area of the ice and took a 3-1 lead to the intermission.
As the Maple Leafs head into the third period, they are looking to keep the momentum going from the second. However, that wasn’t the case, less than three minutes into the third; Jack McBain tipped a shot past Woll to bring Utah within one. At the halfway mark of the third period, the Maple Leafs had played the majority of the period in the offensive zone. Utah eventually got their first shot of the period with just under the seven-minute mark as they looked to tie the game at three. Toronto put a ton of pressure on Utah through the last 40 minutes. If it wasn’t for Vejmelka playing as well as he did, the game could have easily been 6-2; instead, he kept his team in the game and gave them a chance to tie it with less than six minutes to go in the third.
Utah applied pressure within the last five minutes, throwing all they could at Woll. At 1:50 left in the third, they pulled Vejmelka to give them the man advantage, where they continued to put everything towards the net. However, they just weren’t able to get one more past Woll. In the dying seconds, the Maple Leafs were able to clear the puck out of the zone. Nylander sent it down into the empty net, unfortunately, the horn sounded before the puck crossed the line. The Maple Leafs’ second-period dominance won them this game, 3-2.
