Coming off of wins over Buffalo and Edmonton, the Toronto Maple Leafs look for their third consecutive victory against the Vancouver Canucks tonight on Hockey Night in Canada.
After winning their opening four games of the season — three required overtime — the Canucks enter the matchup mired in a seven-game losing slump, having been shut out in four of those seven games. Dating back to March of last season, the Canucks have been shut out in eight of their last 24 games played.
The Canucks’ current 4-6-1 record comes despite top-10 goaltending at even strength (.932). The efforts of Ryan Miller (1.79 GAA, .934 SV%) and Jacob Markstrom (2.14 GAA, .920 SV%) have been left unsupported by an offense currently scoring at a 1.45 goals-per-game clip (dead last by over half a goal per game). The Canucks are tied for ninth in goals against per game and fifth in shots against per game, but sit bottom five in score-adjusted CF% (46.42%).
The Canuck forward group is characterized by an aging top line followed by nonexistent scoring depth. Henrik Sedin and Brandon Sutter currently pace the team in points scoring with five points in 11 games, while 12 of Vancouver’s 18 regulars have three points or less. Loui Eriksson, signed to a six-year contract worth six million a season in the offseason, is scoreless and has just four points through 11 games. Their defence group is also contributing very little offensively, currently paced by Philip Larsen’s three points in 11 games.
It’s gone from raining to pouring for the Canucks with injuries to their top two blueliners. Alex Edler is out day to day and Chris Tanev is out “a little longer than that,” according to head coach Willie Desjardins. Edler was injured in the Canucks’ most recent loss to the Senators, while Tanev missed two games in late October before returning and apparently reaggravating his injury.
Long story short, the Canucks should be ripe for the picking — especially with their top D pair now out — but their goaltending has been able to keep them in games, particularly tonight’s starter Ryan Miller. Frederik Andersen will start at the other end for the Leafs, looking to win his third consecutive after stopping 83 of 86 shots in his last two starts.
The Maple Leafs are expected to keep the lineup the same from their past couple of wins against Edmonton and Buffalo. The point of emphasis from Mike Babcock has been getting shots against and scoring chances down after a bad outing, despite the win, in both respects versus Buffalo. The team struggled to recover pucks off the cycle and break out in Babcock’s preferred tight five-man units in Thursday’s win and will be looking to get on track systems wise tonight.
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 – Nikita Soshnikov
Defencemen
Morgan Rielly – Nikita Zaitsev
Jake Gardiner – Roman Polak
Martin Marincin – Connor Carrick
Scratched: Seth Griffith, Frank Corrado, Peter Holland
Injured: Matt Hunwick
Goaltenders
Starter: Frederik Andersen
Backup: Jhonas Enroth
Vancouver Canucks Projected Lines
Forwards
Daniel Sedin – Henrik Sedin – Jannik Hansen
Markus Granlund – Brandon Sutter – Loui Eriksson
Sven Baertschi – Bo Horvat – Jake Virtanen
Alexandre Burrows – Brendan Gaunce – Jack Skille
Injured: Anton Rodin, Jayson Megna
Defencemen
Ben Hutton – Erik Gudbranson
Luca Sbisa – Philip Larsen
Troy Stecher – Nikita Tryamkin
Injured: Alex Edler, Chris Tanev
Goaltenders
Starter: Ryan Miller
Backup: Jacob Markstrom
