{"id":334261,"date":"2025-12-09T09:24:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T09:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334261\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T09:24:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T09:24:10","slug":"dennis-hildeby-registers-first-nhl-shutout-toronto-maple-leafs-blank-tampa-bay-lightning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334261\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennis Hildeby registers first NHL shutout, Toronto Maple Leafs blank Tampa Bay Lightning"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Dennis Hildeby<\/a> made 29 saves for the first shutout of his NHL career as the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> blanked the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> 2-0 on Monday night.<\/p>\n

Morgan Rielly<\/a> and Auston Matthews<\/a>, into the empty net, scored for Toronto (14-11-4), which improved to 4-0-1 over its last five games.<\/p>\n

Jonas Johansson<\/a> stopped 22 shots for Tampa Bay (16-11-2). The Lightning have dropped four straight in regulation after winning seven in a row.<\/p>\n

Hildeby, who started the season as the Maple Leafs\u2019 No. 4 goaltending option, got another start with both Anthony Stolarz<\/a> and Joseph Woll<\/a> on injured reserve.<\/p>\n

The Lightning had centre Brayden Point<\/a> and winger Nikita Kucherov<\/a> back in the lineup from injury absences, but were minus No. 1 goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a>. Point missed seven games with an undisclosed injury, while Kucherov sat out Saturday\u2019s 2-0 home loss to the New York Islanders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay has now been shut out in consecutive games for the first time since November 2023.<\/p>\n

TAKEAWAYS<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: The NHL\u2019s 30th-ranked power play entering Monday dropped to an ugly 2-for-27 over its last 12 games. Toronto failed to connect on its two man-advantage chances against Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

Lightning: Head coach Jon Cooper said he hopes Vasilevskiy can return to the fold at some point during the team\u2019s four-game road trip, which started Monday at Scotiabank Arena.<\/p>\n

KEY MOMENT<\/p>\n

Rielly broke a scoreless tie with 3:34 left in the first period off the rush when he slid his fifth goal of the season past Johansson with Tampa Bay winger Jake Guentzel<\/a> draped all over the Maple Leafs defenceman.<\/p>\n

KEY STAT<\/p>\n

John Tavares<\/a> assisted on Rielly\u2019s icebreaker to become the first Toronto player age 35 or older with at least 30 points before their 30th game of a season since Mats Sundin<\/a> in 2007-08. <\/p>\n

UP NEXT<\/p>\n

Lightning: Visit the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: Host the San Jose Sharks<\/a> on Thursday. <\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 8, 2025. <\/p>\n

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Dennis Hildeby made 29 saves for the first shutout of his NHL career as the Toronto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-334261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}