Maple Leafs vs Canucks: MacEwen Winner, Stolarz Steady in 4-2 Road-Trip Salvage

The Maple Leafs vs Canucks finale of Toronto's western road trip ended in a 4-2 Leafs win at Rogers Arena on Oct. 31, with fourth-liner Zack MacEwen scoring the game-winner on a goal that ricocheted in off two Vancouver bodies. Auston Matthews scored his team-leading 11th goal, William Nylander had a goal and an assist, Teddy Blueger iced it into an empty net, and Anthony Stolarz made 26 saves to improve to 5-1-0. The win snapped a two-game skid, lifted Toronto to 8-6-2 and sent the Leafs home with a 2-2 split on the trip.

It was not a masterpiece. Vancouver came in at 3-11-1 with one win in its previous 12 games and left at 3-12-1, and the Leafs needed a dominant middle period to separate from a team that was there for the taking from the opening faceoff. But after back-to-back losses in Calgary and Seattle, two points were the entire assignment, and Toronto collected them.

How the Maple Leafs vs Canucks game unfolded

Nylander opened the scoring 1:23 into the game, breaking out alone and finishing on a breakaway with his familiar backhand-to-forehand pull. The lead held until the Canucks' power play struck at 10:30 of the first, when Brock Boeser walked Stolarz with a forehand-backhand-forehand move to tie it 1-1.

The second period is where Toronto won the game. The Leafs outshot Vancouver 13-6 in the frame and spent long shifts pinning the Canucks in their own end, the kind of sustained offensive-zone pressure Jim Hiller's staff had flagged as missing during the trip. Matthews broke the tie at 3:47, beating Canucks goaltender Leevi Merilainen on the short side for a 2-1 lead.

MacEwen's goal at 12:34 made it 3-1. It came out of a scramble: a shot from the point bounced out of Merilainen's glove, caromed off a Canucks defenceman and trickled over the line. It will not make anyone's highlight reel, and it does not matter. It stood up as the winner.

Max Sasson pulled Vancouver within one, cashing a rebound in tight after Stolarz stopped a soft shot from the high slot through traffic. (The NHL's recap and the wire reports disagree on whether that goal came late in the second or early in the third.) Vancouver pushed, Stolarz held, and Blueger finished a 2-on-1 pass from Nylander into the empty net at 18:24 of the third. Stolarz picked up an assist on the clinching goal.

The box-score summary below covers the scoring:

Stolarz keeps making the goalie decision for Hiller

Stolarz's 26-save night (the Leafs' own recap lists 27) pushed his record to 5-1-0, and the more telling detail is how calm the game felt in front of him. He was beaten cleanly by Boeser's move on the power play and gave up the rebound on Sasson's goal, but he controlled most of what Vancouver threw at him and did not let a 3-2 game turn into a coin flip in the final 10 minutes.

That matters because the crease is the most loaded question on this roster. Sergei Bobrovsky carries a $7 million cap hit with a no-move clause through 2028-29; Stolarz is at $3.75 million through 2029-30, per the Leafs contract sheet. We argued before the game that Hiller should start Stolarz in Vancouver and ride the hot hand. He did, and Stolarz delivered. With the Utah Mammoth up next at home, there is no case for taking the net away from him.

Matthews' road streak reaches eight games

Matthews' goal extended his season-opening road point streak to eight games: he has at least a point in every road game he has played this season. His 11 goals lead the team, one ahead of Nylander's 10. Those two have carried the offence through an October in which Toronto has been without John Tavares since Oct. 15 and lost Kirill Marchenko to a lower-body injury in Calgary.

Nylander's night was the more complete one. The breakaway goal showed his speed, and the empty-net feed to Blueger showed the patience that makes him one of the league's better two-way puck carriers when he is engaged. His $11.5 million cap hit runs through 2031-32; nights like this are why that contract still reads as a bargain.

Tanev and Joshua return, and change the look of the lineup

Chris Tanev was back after missing nine games with an upper-body injury suffered in Denver on Oct. 10. His return steadies a right side that had been stretched by injuries to Nick Blankenburg and Marshall Rifai, both listed week-to-week. We covered the target date in Tanev's planned return in Vancouver; it held.

Dakota Joshua, back from a core injury, was the most noticeable Leaf not named Matthews or Nylander. The Leafs Nation tallied him at plus-1 with five shots and seven hits in 11:00 of ice time, which is about as much physical activity as a third-liner can pack into a night. Hiller singled out the line in his postgame availability, saying he thought the Colton Sissons-Joshua-Gavin McKenna trio was "really effective," per The Leafs Nation.

The flip side was McKenna's third period. The 18-year-old made skilled plays and kept pucks alive through 40 minutes, but his third-period ice time fell to 2:09 according to The Leafs Nation, which attributed it to Hiller losing patience with turnovers. Maple Leafs Hot Stove counted four third-period shifts and called it a shame he was again shortened with a lead. Expect that usage pattern to stay a talking point; we have argued Hiller should give McKenna more ice time, not less.

Special teams were flat again

Toronto went 0-for-2 on the power play and allowed a goal on four Vancouver chances. Against a Canucks team with three wins all season, that is not good enough, and it is a pattern worth watching on the homestand: the Leafs won this game at five-on-five, particularly in a second period in which they spent long stretches in the offensive zone.

The penalty kill's one blemish came on a high-skill individual play from Boeser rather than a structural breakdown, which is the more forgivable kind. The power play's issue is different. Without Tavares and Marchenko, Hiller has had to keep reshuffling his units, and the chemistry has not been there.

What the road trip told us

The trip finished 2-2: a 7-2 rout in Edmonton, a 5-2 loss in Calgary in which Marchenko got hurt, a 5-4 loss in Seattle decided by a late Brandon Montour goal, and this win. Four points from eight available. Before the trip we set five of eight points as the bar out west, so the Leafs fell one point short of it. That is neither a crisis nor a success.

Hiller's own read was blunter. Asked after the game whether his team had found its identity, he said, "I think we've been inconsistent. Too inconsistent," per Maple Leafs Hot Stove. He also pointed to the lack of practice time in a congested October schedule, and to the extended session the team held at UBC's Thunderbird Arena the day before the game as the kind of work it needs more of. November gives him that time.

What's next: Utah at Scotiabank Arena

The Leafs open a six-game homestand on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. ET against the Utah Mammoth, who won the first meeting 5-4 in Utah on Oct. 13. Utah has been one of the better teams in the Central Division through October and plays in Philadelphia on Nov. 1 before arriving in Toronto.

The questions for Tuesday are straightforward. Does Stolarz get a third straight start? Does McKenna stay with Sissons and Joshua or move back up the lineup? And does the power play find anything on home ice? Check the Atlantic Division standings for where 18 points in 16 games leaves Toronto; the answer is in the mix, and well short of comfortable.