On a cold, Wednesday night, the Leafs face off against the Vegas Golden Knights. Both teams went into the game looking to grab their 12th win on the season. Both teams were without their captains with Toronto’s Auston Matthews missing his seventh straight game and Vegas’ Mark Stone missing his sixth.

This game marked the first NHL game for another Leafs prospect, Nikita Grebenkin. Grebenkin played mostly on the third line while being a physical presence and making himself known in his first game. Leafs fans are excited to see what Grebenkin will offer over the course of a full NHL season.

Toronto got off to a slow start, not registering a shot for the first few minutes of the game. Vegas got an early powerplay off of a tripping penalty from Morgan Rielly. The Leafs killed this penalty with no problems.

The Maple Leafs went up 1-0 at 8:53 of the first period when Toronto’s top center prospect Fraser Minten, took Nylander’s pass from below the goal line and shot low on goaltender Adin Hill for his first NHL goal in only his 5th major-league contest.

The second period of this game was the most eventful period of Leafs hockey this season, and not particularly in the good way.

At about 8 minutes through the second, Matthew Knies was coming along the boards with the puck when he got hit by Vegas defender Zach Whitecloud. Whitecloud threw his shoulder up, leaving his feet to hit the Leafs forward, in a play that wasn’t called as a penalty. There was a review after many scrums, and the play was deemed a clean hit, and whether we believe it or not, that’s the call on the ice. Knies went to the dressing room and did not return to the game. Simon Benoit was assessed a 4-minute penalty for roughing, while Whitecloud was only assessed two.

In the following minutes, you’d think you were watching a UFC fight rather than a hockey game. After every whistle, there was a scrum, with the most notable being roughing calls against a couple Maple Leafs after OEL got into it with Brett Howden. John Tavares and Alex Holtz got into it as well, ending with Tavares slamming Holtz down to the ice, giving both men roughing calls as well.

The final minutes of the period were relatively calm, with another Vegas powerplay being the highlight of the final 10 minutes.

In the final frame, the Leafs came out looking like a new team with a vengeance. Within the first two minutes, Zach Whitecloud took a hooking penalty (karma, I guess) against John Tavares to give the Leafs their first powerplay of the game. They had a few chances within the first minute, but couldn’t capitalize.

Vegas pushed into the Leafs end, losing the puck quickly with John Tavares coming up with it. He threw it up the ice to Mitch Marner who had William Nylander on a 2-on-1, with Nylander shooting short side against Hill to bring the lead to 2-0.

The rest of the period was all Toronto, not giving Vegas much room to work with. Pontus Holmberg scored his first of the year on an empty Vegas net to secure a 3-0 shutout win for the Maple Leafs.

“It was fun, it felt great,” Minten said on his first NHL goal. “I got a line change there and sometimes when you come off the bench on the rush they don’t really pick you up, so I just tried to stay in the quiet ice there. I know ‘Willy’ sees everything, so I just was waiting for something and he made a great pass.”

Joseph Woll spoke on the game after his 31-save shutout effort.

“I think behind a great defensive effort, I played within my system. There were some different moments where the momentum was swinging both ways and in the second period we had a few penalty kills. It’s tough though for me to talk much about my game because sitting behind our effort tonight was pretty special.”

Toronto is back on the ice on November 24th against Utah.