The Greatest Individual Toronto Maple Leafs Performances of All-Time

There have been some great individual performances in Toronto Maple Leafs history.

The Toronto Maple Leafs may have not won any championships in the last 50 years, but their history still contains a lot of great individual moments.

Here are five of the most memorable.

Enjoy!

Number 5: Howie Meeker’s Five Goals as a Rookie

Most people of my generation remember Howie Meeker as the excitable and helium-voiced colour commentator for Hockey Night in Canada during the 1970s and 80s.

Meeker was also an MP for the Progressive Conservative party, ran a famous chain of hockey schools in Canada and the USA, and was instrumental in setting up Special Olympics Canada. Oh, yes, and before taking all this on, Howie Meeker was a WW2 vet and one heck of a hockey player.

Meeker was a  member of the Toronto Maple Leafs during the fruitful 1940s and early 50s and won three Stanley Cups as a member of the buds. He was also the winner of the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 1947.

It was in his rookie season with the Leafs, on January 8, 1947, that Meeker scored five goals in a single game during a 10-4 drubbing of the Chicago Blackhawks at Maple Leaf Gardens. In doing so, he established an NHL record for most goals by a rookie in a single game.

Meeker was the first NHL rookie to pull off this feat in the Modern Era, and only Don Murdoch of the New York Rangers has equaled this mark since. Murdoch had his five goal game on October 12, 1976.

Former Leaf great and Meeker teammate, Wally Stanowski, contested Meeker’s record for many years, insisting that he had in fact scored two of those five goals on shots that Meeker was credited with redirecting.

However, due to the antiquity of the event in question, and a lack of definitive video reply evidence, Stanowski’s claims have never been proven and Meeker’s mark still stands.

Stanowski passed away in 2015 at the age of 96, and Howie Meeker is 96 as of this writing.