Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner is in the midst of one of his best NHL seasons — in a contract year, no less — and the 27-year-old was again a catalyst in a 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night.
Marner scored an empty net goal and added two assists at Scotiabank Arena, in the process passing Borje Salming (122) for the most multi-assist games in Toronto history, according to NHL Public Relations. “That total is also the fourth most among all players since he made his debut in 2016-17, behind Connor McDavid (183), Nathan MacKinnon (133) and Nikita Kucherov (130),” per NHL.com.
It's impressive company for the Markham, Ontario native, who is up to a team-leading 67 points in just 48 games in 2024-25. Marner's best campaign came in 2022-23, when he amassed 30 goals and 99 points over 80 contests. This time around, he's on pace to shatter the 100-point plateau for the first time in his career.
Along with significant contributions from Auston Matthews (37 points in 33 games) and William Nylander (49 in 48), the Leafs have emerged into one of the Eastern Conference's premier teams. Now 30-16-2 and first place in the Atlantic Division, Toronto just continues to win prolifically.
Leafs continue to roll right along in 2025

After Monday's triumph, the Leafs have won three games in a row and eight of 11 dating back to New Year's Eve. Toronto is the third team this season to reach 30 wins, and it took the current roster the second-fewest games to reach that mark in franchise history, per NHL.com.
The Leafs jumped out to a 2-0 lead and never looked back, and are now just five points back of the Washington Capitals in the President's Trophy race.
“The first period was really good, I thought,” head coach Craig Berube said afterwards, per NHL.com's Dave McCarthy. “We came out and had the right mindset in the game. I thought we played a real good first. They made a push in the second, they had some rush chances against us, but Woll was good. Overall, I liked our game.”
“I thought our start was much better tonight than some of the previous games,” echoed Matthews, who scored the opening goal of the contest and added an assist. “It’s a good team over there. They weren’t going to go away no matter what the score was or situation was. I’m just happy with the response we had after giving up goals against, so I thought it was a really good game by everybody out there.”
The Leafs look like a completely different team since the calendar flipped to 2025, and Joseph Woll has been excellent between the pipes, starting each of the last three games and winning all of them.
Everything just seems to be going right for Berube's troops as of late, and the squad will look to continue those winning ways against the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday night. Puck is set to drop just past 7:30 p.m. ET from Scotiabank Arena.