January was quite busy for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who played 12 games in 25 days leading into last week. Fortunately, their schedule lightened up, with only two games on tap in week 17: at home against the Minnesota Wild and on the road against the Edmonton Oilers. Thus, they began a stretch of 11 of their next 13 games away from Scotiabank Arena.
3rd star: Mitch Marner
Week 17 stats: 2 GP – 1 G – 1 A – 2 PTS
Season stats: 52 GP – 16 G – 54 A – 70 PTS
Another week, another multi-point game for Mitch Marner, as he continues arguably his best season as a Maple Leaf. Despite going pointless against the Wild last Wednesday, the Markham, Ontario native picked up his 16th goal and 54th assist of the season – his 24th multi-point game this year – against the Oilers over the weekend, keeping him in the Art Ross race with 70 points, just ten points shy of the league-leader, Nathan MacKinnon (80).
It’s pretty evident who the Toronto Maple Leafs’ MVP has been through 52 games. Earlier in the season, there could’ve been an argument for Anthony Stolarz and John Tavares, along with Marner, but with Stolarz’s absence and Tavares just coming back into the lineup, mixed with Marner’s tear, it deserves to go to Mitch because he is truly having an MVP-type season.
He’s among the league leaders in points and assists, and seems to be climbing the franchise all-time lists almost weekly with his performances. With his assist over the weekend, he’s now sitting on 499, just one shy of 500, and will become just the fourth Maple Leaf ever to record 500 assists with the franchise.
2nd star: William Nylander
Week 17 stats: 2 GP – 2 G – 0 A – 2 PTS
Season stats: 52 GP – 30 G – 22 A – 52 PTS
Although there are 30 games left in the 2024-25 season, and he can turn it up to an even higher level, William Nylander’s production this year isn’t close to what he was able to do last year (40 goals, 58 assists and 98 points). However, he is still having a productive season, scoring at the highest rate of his career, which continued last week.
The Calgary, Alberta native’s assist totals might be down this season (on pace for the lowest total since 2020-21), but Nylander is scoring goals at a ridiculous clip this season after finding the back of the net two more times last week, putting him at 30 on the season, which is good enough for third in the league, tied with Sam Reinhart.
It’s been a tough season goal-scoring-wise for the Maple Leafs as a whole (3.06 goals per game), with the likes of Auston Matthews, Nylander, Tavares, Matthew Knies and Marner leading the way with 66% of the team’s goals. But the man leading the way is on pace for the best season goal-scoring season of his career. He scored Toronto’s lone goal in last week’s 3-1 loss to the Wild and continued scoring in Edmonton against the Oilers, as he opened the scoring early in the first period.
1st star: Joseph Woll
Week 17 stats: 2 GP – 1-1-0 – 2.55 GAA – .931 SV%
Season stats: 28 GP – 18-10-0 – 1 SO – 2.66 GAA – .909 SV%
It’s part of the game, but Joseph Woll, whose career high in games played in a single season was 25, was put into a tough spot once Anthony Stolarz went down with an injury, forcing the 26-year-old to be the man of the crease for the time being. He may have hit a rough patch with the number of games he was playing during the absence of Stolarz, recording a .885 SV% in early to mid-January. But Woll has been able to look like the same goalie we saw at the beginning of the season over these last three games.
With just two games on their schedule last week, Woll got the nod for both, and despite going 1-1-0, he gave his team a chance to win both games, and that’s all you want from your goalie. Scoring was a challenge for Toronto against Minnesota, as they fell 3-1, but Woll did his part, stopping 22 of 24 for a .917 SV%.
Suddenly, the Maple Leafs had dropped three consecutive games in regulation for the second time in January. And if they wanted to avoid a fourth straight loss, they needed to have a bounce-back effort against a darn good Edmonton team. And that is what they did, led by Woll. His team got out to an early 3-0 lead after 20 minutes, but he needed to be sharp for the remaining 40, as the Oilers had the Maple Leafs on their heels, giving them everything they had. They made things interesting, scoring three goals, but it wasn’t enough, as Woll’s performance (45 saves, .938 SV%) secured the 4-3 win.
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