The Toronto Maple Leafs visit the Bell Centre looking to hand the Montreal Canadiens their first regulation loss of the season in the first of four 2016-17 meetings between the age-old foes.
An exciting, skilled and young Leafs team is looking to inject some new life into the game’s oldest rivalry, which has been decidedly one-sided in recent years. The Leafs have been swept in the season series two years in a row and have lost ten consecutive to the Canadiens dating back to 2013-14, with their last win against Montreal coming back on January 18, 2014.
That is an ugly trend that a new-look Leafs team should be intent on reversing as soon as possible. It will be no easy feat, however, as the Canadiens enter the game white hot to start the year — they currently lead the league with 15 points and are the only team in the NHL yet to lose in regulation. They’ve scored the second most goals (29), allowed the least (13), and are perfect at home through four games. Since returning from illness, Carey Price is 4-0-0 and has allowed just six goals over those starts.
In addition to league-best goaltending from Al Montoya and Price in the early going, the Canadiens are getting balanced scoring, with all of their regular forwards outside of Tomas Plekanec and Brian Flynn having scored a goal this season. The Habs are also receiving great early production out of defencemen Shea Weber (team-leading nine points) and Jeff Petry (six points).
The Maple Leafs are coming off a 3-2 win against the Panthers in which Mitch Marner was lights-out and Frederik Andersen was excellent late on. The Leafs will need Andersen to build off of his third-period performance against a Habs team that is rolling offensively.
Tale of the Tape
First Leafs vs. Habs rivalry game for Matthews, Marner, Nylander: Ten losses in a row to the Montreal Canadiens — that’s an embarrassing statistic for a once-proud franchise, and it’s a black mark the Auston Matthews-era Leafs will set about erasing in the coming seasons. This is a nascent Leaf team going up against a veteran Habs club that looks capable of contending with a healthy Carey Price, but this is the first opportunity for Leafs to turn the page against their oldest rival as the franchise celebrates the turn of the new centennial. The Leafs’ triumvirate of young scorers — as well as rookies Nikita Zaitsev, Connor Brown and Zach Hyman — will step onto the Bell Centre ice for a Hockey Night In Canada rivalry game for the first time in their Leaf careers tonight. It will be fascinating to see how the kids respond.
Worst third-period team vs. best: For a team tied for second in first-period goals (9) and fourth in second-period goals (11), third-period leads have been precarious for the Leafs. If Toronto manages to build themselves another lead after 40 — as they’ve done in six of their seven games so far — they will be going up against the league leader in third-period goals. 16 of the Habs’ 29 goals have been scored in the final 20, a league-high by a significant margin.
The good news for the Leafs is their play in second periods (11 goals for, 6 against) so far this season. Babcock has called second-period success a hallmark of good teams in the past.
The good teams always eat up the other team in the second period.
Blue Line Mix and Match: The lineup for the Leafs will remain the same from Thursday’s win versus Florida, but the defence pairings remain in flux. Based on the practice lines, Connor Carrick, after an excellent game against the Panthers, will join Morgan Rielly on the top pair; Martin Marincin and Nikita Zaitsev will partner up, and Jake Gardiner and Roman Polak will play together — at least to start. Babcock mentioned that he liked the Carrick – Zaitsev pairing that he threw together midgame versus Florida, but he’s not gone back to it, opting to pair up his lefties and righties instead.
Carrick has played about 23 minutes with Rielly this season at even strength, a chunk of it coming in the Minnesota game; while the pair was directly responsible for a couple of goals against in that game, they’ve been a 54% CF overall in 23 minutes together. Carrick’s most common partner has been Gardiner and the pairing has been the Leafs’ best from a possession standpoint — they’ve carried a really strong 61% of the shot attempts in their 50 minutes together at even strength. Babcock and DJ Smith have broken the pairing up in an attempt to fix the other two pairings and benefit the overall group of six.
The search for the right mix on the blue line continues for the Leafs in the early going.
Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines
Forwards
Leo Komarov – Nazem Kadri – Connor Brown
van Riemsdyk – Tyler Bozak – Mitch Marner
Zach Hyman – Auston Matthews – William Nylander
Matt Martin – Ben Smith – Seth Griffith
Defencemen
Morgan Rielly – Connor Carrick
Jake Gardiner – Roman Polak
Martin Marincin – Nikita Zaitsev
Scratched: Frank Corrado, Peter Holland
Injured: Josh Leivo, Matt Hunwick
Goaltenders
Starter: Frederik Andersen (Confirmed)
Backup: Jhonas Enroth
Montreal Canadiens Projected Lines
Forwards
Max Pacioretty – David Desharnais – Andrew Shaw
Alexander Radulov – Alex Galchenyuk – Brendan Gallagher
Artturi Lehkonen – Tomas Plekanec – Paul Byron
Phillip Danault – Torrey Mitchell – Brian Flynn
Defencemen
Alexei Emelin – Shea Weber
Andrei Markov – Jeff Petry
Nathan Beaulieu – Greg Pateryn
Scratched: Mikhail Sergachev
Goaltenders
Starter: Carey Price (Confirmed)
Backup: Al Montoya
