The Toronto Maple Leafs have been busy over the last six weeks. However, since their 4-3 overtime win over the Oilers on November 16th, they’ve played just two games in an eight-day window and will not play again until Wednesday. They entered week seven of their season without Auston Matthews but in sole possession of first place in the Atlantic division, thanks to a 5-1-0 run in their last seven games while the team has battled injuries and absences.

They continued their three-game homestand with two matchups against two Western Conference teams, the Vegas Golden Knights and the brand-new Utah Hockey Club, as Toronto looked to continue their good play.

William Nylander has been one of the most consistent players in the NHL over the last couple of seasons and has continued that this year. Heading into last week, he had 20 points through 18 games, including eight multi-point performances over that stretch.

In their mid-week game against Vegas, Nylander helped lead the way in an impressive victory as he set up Fraser Minten for his first career goal just over the midway point of the first period and scored his 13th goal of the season on the power play, doubling their lead. Just like that, he had recorded his ninth multi-point game of the season, and after Matthew Knies left Wednesday night’s game with an upper-body injury following a controversial hit by Zach Whitecloud, Toronto was desperate for another body to enter the lineup as they added Knies to their laundry list of injuries.

The organization announced late last week that they had signed William’s brother Alex to a one-year contract and recalled him from the Marlies, giving the Nylander brother some extra juice as the two siblings finally get to play together. To close out the week, Toronto took on Utah as the only two teams in action Sunday night, and William picked up right where he left off, scoring again – his 14th of the season – and adding an assist on their third goal of the night, making last night his tenth multi-point game of the campaign.

It’s beginning to feel like a broken record when it comes to Mitch Marner, but the Markham, Ontario native continues to be one of the very best players in the league this season, especially with Matthews out of the lineup.

Entering last week, Marner had registered a point in 11 of his last 12 games and was coming off consecutive multi-point performances against the Capitals and Oilers after his eight-game point streak snapped against the Senators. He continued that multi-point streak with two assists in Toronto’s impressive 3-0 win over Vegas after assisting on Nylander’s third-period power-play goal and Pontus Holmberg’s empty net goal to seal the victory, and he didn’t stop against the Hockey Club when they came to town for the first time in their existence.

The pending UFA recorded two more goals Sunday night – his seventh and eighth of the campaign – in their 3-2 win over Utah. His first goal of the night came on a breakaway thanks to a brilliant pass up ice from John Tavares who found Marner all alone in the neutral zone. With another four-point week, he has improved his season totals to 28 points – eight goals and 20 assists – in 21 games, good enough for tenth in the league, tied with Dylan Strome, Jesper Bratt and Connor McDavid.

A lot of the praise regarding the Toronto Maple Leafs’ goaltending is going toward Anthony Stolarz, and rightfully so. But Joseph Woll had been solid leading up to last week before back-to-back starts. Although he didn’t own a league-best .927 SV% like his partner, Woll was around league average and had an opportunity to improve that when he got the starting nod against the Golden Knights last Wednesday.

With a handful of regular forwards out of the lineup due to injury or suspension, the Maple Leafs were in for a tough matchup against the Golden Knights. Fortunately, Toronto was up for the task, blanking them 3-0 thanks to a great all-around effort from everybody, including Woll, who stopped all 31 shots the road team recorded and picked up his first shutout of the season – the second of his career.

With an impressive win over Vegas, the thought was Toronto would go back to Anthony Stolarz against Utah. After all, the two goalies had been rotating starts since their back-to-back on November 8th and 9th, but Craig Berube and his staff decided to give the 26-year-old another start, and you couldn’t blame them after what we saw from him last week.

Similarly to his performance against the Pacific division-leading Golden Knights, Woll put together another great showing to close out the homestand, stopping 23 of the 25 shots they recorded, helping his team pick up the 3-2 win and improve to 13-6-2, good for first in the Atlantic division.

(Stats from hockey-reference.com)