Canadian Olympic gold medalist John Tavares of Mississauga, Ontario notched his 11th career National Hockey League hat trick on Wednesday. The Toronto Maple Leafs center had three goals and one assist for four points as the Maple Leafs defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 5-2 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Of Tavares’s 11 NHL hat tricks, eight have been with the New York Islanders, and now three with the Maple Leafs.
Tavares scored the Maple Leafs’s second, fourth and fifth goals of the game. He put the Maple Leafs up 2-1 with one minute and 27 seconds left in the first period from William Nylander of Calgary, Alberta, and Morgan Rielly of Vancouver, British Columbia. Tavares then put the Maple Leafs up 4-2 with a goal from Mitch Marner of Markham, Ontario and Victor Mete of Woodbridge, Ontario at 12:42 of the third period. Tavares’s final goal was at 15:23 of the third period from Reilly and Auston Matthews on the power play.
Three Canadians had multi-point games for the Maple Leafs. Tavares had three goals and one assist for four points. Marner and Rielly had two assists each.
On the season, Tavares has seven goals and seven assists for 14 points in 11 games. He is a -3 with two penalty minutes, nine power-play points, 43 shots on goal, 110 faceoff wins, five blocked shots, 13 hits, 11 takeaways and six giveaways. Tavares won his gold medal for Canada at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi.
The Maple Leafs are in fourth place in the Atlantic Division with 12 points. They have a record of five wins, four regulation losses, and two losses in extra time.
