{"id":402011,"date":"2026-01-11T06:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T06:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/402011\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T06:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T06:23:07","slug":"william-nylander-returns-with-three-point-effort-as-toronto-maple-leafs-cruise-past-vancouver-canucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/402011\/","title":{"rendered":"William Nylander returns with three-point effort as Toronto Maple Leafs cruise past Vancouver Canucks"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 William Nylander<\/a> returned from a six-game absence due to injury with one goal and two assists as the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> cruised past the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> 5-0 on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Matias Maccelli<\/a>, Max Domi<\/a>, John Tavares<\/a> and Nick Robertson also scored for Toronto (22-15-7), which extended its winning streak to three games, and seven straight at home. Joseph Woll<\/a> made 29 saves for his second shutout of the season.<\/p>\n

Thatcher Demko<\/a> was pulled after giving up three first-period goals on six shots for Vancouver (16-23-5), which dropped its sixth in a row. Kevin Lankinen<\/a> stopped 16 shots in relief.<\/p>\n

Maccelli opened the scoring on the Leafs’ second shot 8:03 into the first period. Nylander and Auston Matthews<\/a> had a give-and-go before Nylander sent a centring pass in front for Maccelli to tip in on the power play.<\/p>\n

Domi scored with 3:29 left after being sprung ahead into a partial breakaway by Troy Stecher<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A streaking Nylander skated around Marcus Pettersson<\/a> off a feed from Steven Lorentz<\/a> and tucked in a backhand just out of the reach of Demko’s stretched out leg with 20 seconds left in the first.<\/p>\n

Nylander found Tavares all alone behind Vancouver’s defence and Tavares roofed it past Lankinen at 13:07 of the second period.<\/p>\n

Robertson scored with 13.4 seconds left on the power play.<\/p>\n

TAKEAWAYS<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: Toronto was whistled for four penalties, including ending up in a 4-on-3, and only had six shots to Vancouver’s 15 in the opening period. The Leafs got their first shot on goal 7:09 into the game. But the theme of the frame, and the game, was quality over quantity, patience and capitalizing on mistakes.<\/p>\n

Canucks: Despite the shot count (29-24), Vancouver just couldn’t figure out the Leafs’ defence. The Canucks were also dominated in the faceoff circle (69.6 per cent to 30.4 per cent). Domi pummelling Pettersson in a fight with six minutes left in the second period was a snippet of how the game unfolded.<\/p>\n

KEY MOMENT<\/p>\n

Nylander’s goal seemed to put an early nail in the coffin for Vancouver.<\/p>\n

KEY STAT<\/p>\n

Domi’s goal was his 100th point (22 goals, 78 assists) with the Leafs.<\/p>\n

UP NEXT<\/p>\n

Canucks: Play the fourth of their six-game road trip against the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: Start a four-game road trip against the NHL-best Colorado Avalanche<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 10, 2026.<\/p>\n

Abdulhamid Ibrahim, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 William Nylander returned from a six-game absence due to injury with one goal and two assists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,82,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-402011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402011","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=402011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}