TORONTO — Let’s hope Lou Lamoriello thought to leave a bit of extra cash aside for the person responsible for updating the Toronto Maple Leafs record book during the off-season.
The Leafs’ sensational crop of rookies in 2016-17 is laying waste to it.
And to perhaps underline the depth of the Leafs’ freshmen, it wasn’t Auston Matthews or Mitch Marner to be the first to topple a team record.
That would be William Nylander, who extended his point streak to 10 games during the Leafs’ 4-2 victory against the New Jersey Devils at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday night.
Nylander had a goal and an assist in the first period, allowing him to leave behind Gus Bodnar (1943-44), Bob Nevin (1960-61) and Dan Daoust (1982-83), all of whom had a nine-game points streak as rookies.
The assist was Nylander’s 35th of the season, kicking in a US$212,500 bonus. Nylander has 25 points on the power play, tying the record for freshmen set by Daoust 34 years ago.
There was more as the Leafs improved to 7-1-1 in their past nine games.
Marner assisted on a second-period goal by James van Riemsdyk, giving him 40 on the season. That ties Marner with Bodnar for the team rookie record, set in ’43-44. And Matthews picked up a pair of assists, moving him to 60 points and within six of Peter Ihnacak’s team freshman mark.
Are you starting to get the idea the outlook for the Leafs’ future hasn’t been this bright in decades?
The Leafs were without defenceman Roman Polak (suspended) and forward Eric Fehr, who is believed to have suffered a broken bone in his left hand during the win in Columbus on Wednesday. Coach Mike Babcock had said in the morning he was unsure of the length of time Fehr would miss.
Toronto was down 1-0 before the game’s three-minute mark on a weak John Moore goal allowed by backup netminder Curtis McElhinney, but as the Leafs have been demonstrating in recent games, there was no sagging in their collective shoulders.
Josh Leivo, in for Fehr while a banged-up Nikita Soshnikov recovers, drew a Leafs power play and then scored on it at 5:46 of the first to tie the game. The goal was Leivo’s 10th point in 13 games this season.
Nylander wired the puck past Devils goalie Keith Kinkaid at 18:17 on a shot the drew gasps from many in the crowd of 19,142.
Early in the second, van Riemsdyk buried a Marner rebound. Tyler Bozak also had an assist, giving him 50 points, a career high.
The Devils scored midway through the third period on a power play, with Moore beating McElhinney not long after Morgan Rielly made a wonderful defensive play to stop a scoring chance.
Connor Brown scored into an empty net with 45.1 seconds left.
The Leafs improved to 6-9-1 in the second game of back-to-back sets and put more room between themselves and the Boston Bruins, who lost against Tampa Bay. The Leafs have 85 points and are in third place in the Atlantic Division, three up on Boston.
While the Leafs weren’t consistently dominant, they also didn’t play down to the Devils, who are 2-11-2 in their past 15 games and in last in the Eastern Conference.
Toronto shrugged off the first Moore goal and went to work. The Leafs didn’t have much trouble holding New Jersey off, forechecking with the enthusiasm that has become a habit. And McElhinney, whose starts are at a premium, settled down after the initial goal.
tkoshan@postmedia.com
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