The Toronto Maple Leafs’ up-and-down start to the season has brought some frustration at times. After a promising 4-2-0 start to the 2024-25 campaign, the Maple Leafs dropped the next three games—0-2-1—bringing them into week four of the season with a record of 4-4-1 and a four-game schedule against the Winnipeg Jets, Seattle Kraken, St. Louis Blues, and Minnesota Wild.

They opened the week with an impressive win against the 8-0-0 Jets and followed it up with another nice win against the Kraken on home ice. However, their two-game winning streak ended quickly. They failed to win either game in the back-to-back against the Blues and Wild, finishing the week with a record of 2-1-1, 6-5-2 overall.

Mitch Marner has been finding his way on the scoresheet lately. Despite seven points in his first eight games, the pending unrestricted free agent (UFA) recorded a four-point week last week, extending his point streak to five games, and improving his season totals to 14 points in 13 games.

Following a three-assist outing in their 4-3 overtime loss to the Bruins to close out week three, Marner opened last week with a primary assist on Matthew Knies’ second-period goal. He followed that up with an assist against the Kraken, his second goal of the season against the Blues and another assist last night against the Wild, which ranks him first in scoring on the team through the first 13 games.

His goal against the Blues Saturday night broke an eight-game drought of not finding the back of the net.

The former captain was battling an illness at the start of the season and missed the third game of the year against the Penguins. Since his return to the lineup against the Kings on October 18th, John Tavares has recorded a point in seven of his last ten games, including putting together a six-game point streak that ended last week against the Blues.

For the second time this season, the Maple Leafs played on Prime Monday Night Hockey, and Tavares capped off an eventful 10-goal game with his 12th career hat-trick. If that wasn’t good enough, he followed that up three nights later with two assists, including a ridiculous pass from his knees to Nylander, who deposited the puck into the open net.

Unfortunately, that six-game point streak couldn’t extend to seven games against the Blues, and Tavares went pointless in both losses on the weekend. After such impressive little stretch from the Pacioretty-Tavares-Nylander line earlier in the week, they struggled mightily in the loss to the Wild, generating an xGF of 0.051, according to Moneypuck.com. To make things worse, they were outshot 10-3 and outscored 1-0.

William Nylander can do things that not many players in the league can do. And he can also make plays that might not thrill his head coach. During a media availability last week, Nylander spoke about his ice time recently and how he’d like more. His time on ice is down almost two minutes from last season – the best season of his career – but Craig Berube has made it apparent that you’ll earn more ice time depending on your play.

Nylander led his team in goals and points last week with a four-goal, two-assist showing, registering his fifth multi-point game, and played north of 20 minutes for the second time this season – the first time since October 12th against the Penguins.

He began the week with his second three-point game of the season en route to a crazy 6-4 win against the Jets and followed that performance up with two more goals against the Kraken on Halloween night. He went pointless against the Blues in what was a frustrating game, but finally scored the team’s first power play on the road this year in last night’s 2-1 overtime loss to the Wild.

(Stats from hockey-reference.com)