On a rare Leaf Sunday night, the Buds, for the first time, take on the Utah Hockey Club.

This game marked another debut for Toronto, as Alex Nylander – brother of William Nylander – made his debut in the blue and white. Alex started the game off on the third line, but he found himself on a couple shifts with his brother, being on the ice for William’s goal.

Toronto started the game relatively slow, not showing the same pace as they have in the previous games. Berube spoke on the Leafs’ first period, stating: “we were flat in the first period, I thought. You can tell off of faceoffs when guys aren’t jumping, aren’t getting a pick, and things like that. We didn’t play north right away in the first. We were kind of trying to go back and regroup too much.”

The second period was a much better representation of Leafs hockey. Toronto tied the game at 5:15 of the second off a Marner snapshot, with a beautiful stretch pass from John Tavares, who is staying hot after taking over the 1C duties.

“I saw John was able to go get it and turn up ice with his head up and free space in front of him,” Marner said. “I just tried to read what I had in front of me and there was a big gap there, so I just tried to find it and John made a great pass.”

Soon after, the Leafs found themselves on a powerplay where Marner scored again, this time banking the puck off of the Utah HC goaltender’s pads, giving the Leafs a 2-1 lead. That goal came off of a 7-minute span where Utah took four penalties.

Keeping the period rolling, William Nylander was able to push the lead to 3-1 after picking the puck off a Utah forward for a breakaway, putting it through the goaltender’s five-hole.

“I just thought we played a lot better (in the second period), straightforward, north, so as soon as we started doing that we won a little bit more of the battles and made quick plays off it and got rewarded for it,” Marner said.

Jack McBain of Utah was able to cut the lead to 3-2 in the third, but they couldn’t get anything else rolling, giving the Leafs the win.

Berube spoke on how the Leafs closed the game: “I thought we did a good job overall. We had some pucks in our zone that should’ve just gone out. We didn’t do that. We tried to make a play, or we weren’t heavy enough on it. We should’ve gotten the puck out a few times with the goalie out, and we didn’t.”

The Maple Leafs are back at it on Wednesday against the Florida Panthers.