Toronto Maple Leafs (39-24-15, t-11th in NHL) vs. Washington Capitals (52-18-8, 1st in NHL)
Puck drop: 7:30 p.m. EST
Arena: Air Canada Center
Watch: TSN4
Game Day Quotes
Capitals head coach Barry Trotz on the threat the Leafs pose:
Obviously, they’re very motivated. Babs and the Leafs are playing very, very well. They’ve got a lot of structure to their game. They’ve tightened up their defensive game. They’re very dangerous. They’ve got a generational player in Auston Matthews, and Marner. They’re playing with a lot of intensity, a lot of focus, and a lot of commitment. They’re in a position to be in the playoffs right now and they’re playing good hockey. They’re getting great goaltending from Andersen. There are not a lot of holes in their game. They’ve got it dialled in right now.
Their speed, their skill – all of those things are sort of acute right now. They’re 8-1-1 in their last 10. Pretty good record.
Trotz on Matthews as a “generational player:”
He’s just a generational player. He’s big, he’s deceptively fast, he has the ability to see and do things at a high rate of speed but I know in his mind everything is slow. He’s able to see everything in slow motion, but he does it very quickly. To me, he’s a generational player. He’s big, strong, it looks like he’s got a real good drive train, a high hockey IQ and a high skill level. He’s just going to get better. I know the staff there is very, very detailed. He’ll keep growing as a player, and that’s pretty dangerous for the rest of the league.
You look at the young talents in the league – McDavid, Auston, Laine – those are pretty generational players we’re starting to see. It’s a good time to be a hockey fan.
Former Leaf Daniel Winnik on Matthews as a top-ten center, Andersen as a top-ten goalie, and Toronto’s abilities as a team:
[I’m] very impressed. I don’t think anybody thought they’d be in the position they’re in. I think a lot of it has to do with their young guys. Auston has obviously been playing phenomenal. He’s already etched himself as a top-ten center in the NHL. I always thought Willy was a really good player. I compared him with guys like Rickard Rakell in Anaheim, who I played with there. They’ve got very similar skill sets, very similar shots.
I think, with those guys playing together – whoever Willy plays with – if he gets a shot off it’s going to produce offense. They’ve really tightened up defensively, and I think the stability with Freddie… when they acquired him, I used to rave about Freddie to the guys in Toronto when I was here from when I was in Anaheim. He’s a top-ten goaltender in this league and he’s proven that this year.
I think you’ve seen the run they’ve been on since they lost in Florida, and you see it throughout the year as well. If you, realistically, take away their blown leads, they’re well into a playoff position. They’ve lost how many games in OT? It’s like 12, or something. It’s got to be up there. They even get half those points and they’re contending for first in the Atlantic. I think a lot of that had to do with their youth through the first half of the season. I think they’ve tightened that up. They’re a team that teams can’t take lightly. Going forward, they’re going to have a lot more respect.
Trotz on Washington’s 8-1-1 record in their last 10:
We aren’t as tight in our game right now. We’ve got to some work to do on it. I think we’ve had a couple of sort of sloppy junk wins. We haven’t had a total game for quite a while. But I think we’re a veteran team and we can dial it in. We have [before]. I thought we were dialled in probably about 15 games ago. We went through a stretch where we got it sorted of dialled in after a tough road trip. We had it for eight or ten games and then we sort of slipped for a little while.
Capitals goaltender Phillipp Grubauer on the Leafs:
They’ve really grown from the start of the year until now. You can see every line is dangerous. They have really skilled guys. Matthews, Marner… those guys, if you don’t pay attention, can burn you and burn you fast. They’re really good off the rush, so we’ve got to make sure we keep them to the outside and keep their power play off the sheet here.
They’re a really good team. They play defence, they have a good goalie over there, and they can snipe.
Capitals forward Tom Wilson on giving up nine goals in the first two games against the Leafs:
They’re a fast team, they’re a talented team. I think the big thing is weathering their storm off the start. They usually come out of the gates pretty fast. We haven’t played our best hockey when we’ve played them previously. We’re going to take the mentality we had in Columbus and hopefully bring that in here. If we play with the pace and the competitiveness and the all-out team mentality, we’ll be all right. But if you get into that run-and-gun, chase kind of game, they’ve got a lot of young skill and young speed that can hurt you.
Morgan Rielly on the chance to clinch a playoff spot tonight:
I mean, we have the best fans in the world. We’re very lucky to be here. We all feel very grateful to be able to wear the Maple Leaf. I think for us to clinch it would be well-deserved for our fan base. It’s something that we want to do and have wanted to do for a long time. We have an opportunity to do it here tonight is my understanding. To be honest, we don’t talk about it very much. We just focus on winning games. We’re going to go out there tonight and try to do our job, win a game and focus on this home stretch here. We have some important games coming up.
Yeah, I think it’s almost a good thing the last couple of years watching the Blue Jays play so well and get the reaction they did from their fans. It makes us hungry and it makes us that much more motivated. We want to be a part of that, and give our fans what they deserve. For us to have an opportunity to make a push here is special.
Matchup Stats
Statistics courtesy of SportingCharts.com
| Stat | Was | Tor |
|---|---|---|
| Points | 112 | 91 |
| Record % | 0.718 | 0.591 |
| Home Winning % | 0.816 | 0.635 |
| Away Winning % | 0.605 | 0.539 |
| Shootout Winning % | 0.286 | 0.111 |
| Goal Differential Per Game | 1.01 | 0.25 |
| Shot Differential Per Game | 2.24 | -1.01 |
| Hits Per Game | 21.2 | 23.9 |
| PIM Per Game | 9.3 | 9.8 |
| Opponent PIM Per Game | 8.7 | 9.8 |
| Goals Per Game | 3.23 | 3.08 |
| Even Strength Goals Per Game | 2.46 | 2.29 |
| Power Play Goals Per Game | 0.71 | 0.71 |
| Shots Per Game | 30.3 | 31.9 |
| Shots Per Goal | 9.4 | 10.4 |
| Team Shooting % | 0.107 | 0.097 |
| Power Play % | 0.234 | 0.242 |
| Goals Against Per Game | 2.22 | 2.83 |
| ES Goals Against Per Game | 1.65 | 2.23 |
| PP Goals Against Per Game | 0.54 | 0.53 |
| Shots Against Per Game | 28.04 | 32.9 |
| Shots Against Per Goal | 12.64 | 11.62 |
| Opp. Team Shooting % | 0.079 | 0.086 |
| Penalty Kill % | 0.842 | 0.83 |
| Save % | 0.921 | 0.914 |
| Goals Against Average | 2.19 | 2.79 |
| Shutouts | 11 | 5 |
| Opponent Save % | 0.893 | 0.904 |
| Opponent Goals Against Average | 3.19 | 3.03 |
| Opponent Shutouts | 3 | 2 |
Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines
Forwards
Leo Komarov – Nazem Kadri – Connor Brown
Zach Hyman – Auston Matthews – William Nylander
James van Riemsdyk – Tyler Bozak – Mitch Marner
Matt Martin – Brian Boyle – Kasperi Kapanen
Defencemen
Morgan Rielly – Connor Carrick
Jake Gardiner – Nikita Zaitsev
Matt Hunwick – Roman Polak
Goaltenders
Starter: Curtis McElhinney (7-6-2, 2.57, 0.921)
Backup: Frederik Andersen
Injured: Eric Fehr, Nikita Soshnikov, Josh Leivo
Scratched: Martin Marincin, Ben Smith, Alexey Marchenko
Washington Capitals Projected Lines
Forwards
Alex Ovechkin – Nicklas Backstrom – T.J. Oshie
Marcus Johansson – Evgeny Kuznetsov – Justin Williams
Brett Connolly – Lars Eller – Andre Burakovsky
Daniel Winnik – Jay Beagle – Tom Wilson
Defencemen
Karl Alzner – John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov – Matt Niskanen
Brooks Orpik – Kevin Shattenkirk
Goaltenders
Starter: Philipp Grubauer (11-6-2, 2.13, 0.924)
Backup: Braden Holtby
Scratched: Paul Carey, Taylor Chorney, Nate Schmidt
Injured: None
Who’s Hot
- Auston Matthews: 12 points (eight goals, four assists) during nine-game point streak
- William Nylander: 16 points (five goals, 11 assists) in last 15 games
- Nazem Kadri: five points (one goal, four assists) during four-game point streak and nine points (three goals, six assists) in last eight games
- Leo Komarov: seven points (three goals, four assists) in last seven games
- James van Riemsdyk: three-game goal-scoring streak
- Nicklas Backstrom: 17 points (two goals, 15 assists) in last 11 games
- Kevin Shattenkirk: 12 assists in last 13 games
- T.J. Oshie: five points (three goals, two assists) during four-game point streak
- Marcus Johansson: ten points (one goal, nine assists) in last six games
