Coming off of a 5-2 loss in Calgary, the Maple Leafs are looking to get their Western road trip on track tonight in Vancouver (7 p.m. EST, Sportsnet).
Outside of the Leafs‘ five losses in their first seven games of the regular season, they have not responded to an off night — where a game got away from them and they lost by multiple goals — with anything but a win.
A 5-1 loss to the Kings on November 8th was followed up by a 3-0 win over Philadelphia, a 6-3 loss to the Jets on December 5th was followed by a 5-4 win over Columbus, and a 6-3 loss to the Rangers on January 19th was followed by a 3-0 win over the Islanders.
Impressively, they haven’t lost two consecutive games in regulation since October 25th or 37 games ago.
They’ll be looking for the same kind of response tonight on the road in front of plenty of Leafs fans at the Rogers Arena in their first meeting of the season against the Vancouver Canucks, who have settled back into mediocre form after their initial tear under Bruce Boudreau.
Petr Mrazek starts for the Leafs, Wayne Simmonds returns after the birth of his second daughter, and Ondrej Kase is good to go after his injury scare on Thursday night in Calgary.
Game Day Quotes
Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau on his anticipation for the matchup against the Leafs:
All I know about them is that I watch all of their games. There will be a lot of people watching from home. You want to put your best foot forward against that team.
We are looking forward to the challenge of playing arguably one of the top four teams in the NHL and easily one of the top two teams offensively in the NHL. It is going to be a great challenge. Hopefully, we are up to the task.
Boudreau on putting together a new top line of Miller – Horvat – Boeser:
Quite frankly, I like the way Hoglander and Podkolzin played with Pettersson. With Petey in the middle, you still have to have one of those guys on left wing for a top-six line. With Dickinson going back into the middle and Lammiko in the middle, I just thought that [Miller] had played lots of left wing and it would be a good time to put that line together.
Sheldon Keefe on whether he envisions a split rotation in net the rest of the way:
I wouldn’t commit to anything like that. I think I would just say that we expect Petr to play more than he has. That has been happening for the last little while for us. I think we will just see more of what we have been doing here of late continue.
Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines
Forwards
#58 Michael Bunting – #34 Auston Matthews – #16 Mitch Marner
#5 Alex Kerfoot – #91 John Tavares – #88 William Nylander
#65 Ilya Mikheyev #64 David Kampf – #25 Ondrej Kase
#47 Pierre Engvall – #19 Jason Spezza – #24 Wayne Simmonds
Defensemen
#44 Morgan Rielly – #78 TJ Brodie
#8 Jake Muzzin – #3 Justin Holl
#38 Rasmus Sandin – #37 Timothy Liljegren
Goaltenders
Starter: #35 Petr Mrazek
#36 Jack Campbell
Extras: Travis Dermott
Vancouver Canucks Projected Lines
Forwards
#9 JT Miller – #53 Bo Horvat – #6 Brock Boeser
#92 Vasily Podkolzin – #40 Elias Pettersson – #21 Nils Hoglander
#70 Tanner Pearson – #18 Jason Dickinson – #8 Connor Garland
#64 Tyler Motte – #91 Juho Lammiko – #39 Alex Chiasson
Defensemen
#23 Oliver Ekman-Larsson – #47 Noah Juulsen
#57 Tyler Myers – #2 Luke Schenn
#77 Brad Hunt – #44 Kyle Burroughs
Goaltenders
Starter: #35 Thatcher Demko
#41 Jaroslav Halak
Covid-19: Quinn Hughes, Matthew Highmore
Injured: Brandon Sutter, Travis Hamonic (game-time decision), Tucker Poolman
