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Tonight on HNIC, the Maple Leafs close out the Battle of Ontario season series against a Senators team decimated by key injuries on the blue line (7:00 p.m. EST, Sportsnet/CBC). 

All of Thomas Chabot, Jakob Chychrun, and Travis Hamonic — number one, three, and five in TOI/game among Sens defensemen, respectively — are out for the Senators, thrusting rookies Jacob Bernard-Docker and Tyler Kleven into the lineup and elevating Erik Brannstrom into a top-four role. In addition to their injuries in net, the Ottawa defense corps could not be much greener as far as NHL blue lines go, and the timing could not be worse for a team that needs to run the table through the final seven games to have any shot whatsoever at snagging the second wildcard position (currently five points back with two teams — Florida and Buffalo — between them and Pittsburgh).

The Leafs should know by now that this era of the Senators typically brings it against them no matter Ottawa’s lack of realistic playoff hopes or situation in the standings, though. The Saturday night atmosphere should be electric inside what will likely be another 70/30 crowd split in favour of Toronto based on the crowd makeup during the Leafs‘ last visit to the Canadian Tire Center on March 18 (a 5-4 Toronto shootout win).

With Wayne Simmonds currently under the weather and extra precautions being taken with the injury rehabs for Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari — in addition to the injury to Bobby McMann — the door has opened for 26-year-old deadline acquisition Radim Zohorna to make his Leafs debut. The six-foot-six Czech forward is going to be one of the two floaters inside the 11 and 7 setup tonight as the Maple Leafs take on a Senators team badly beaten up by injuries on the blue line.

He has done well there for him. He is coming off of an injury recently. He’s only played one game since coming back from an upper-body injury. He hasn’t really played a great deal for them since being there.

He is a big guy that has some skill. We are going to move him around the lineup and use him in different spots today. He has played in the league before, so he has some experience there.

The timing is right in terms of him being the guy to come up. You never know what you might encounter. You may need him. It is good to get him up here.

– Sheldon Keefe on Radim Zohorna’s NHL debut tonight

“Certainly, he is a bigger body down the middle for us. Our scouting staff thought he had played very well for Calgary in the minors, in particular. He kind of bounced around at the beginning of the year. From Pittsburgh, he was claimed by Calgary and then sent down by Calgary. They had thought he played well in the American league for Calgary.”

– Kyle Dubas on the acquisition of Radim Zohorna

Ilya Samsonov is expected to start in goal for Toronto as he looks to turn around a road record that places him below .500 (6-7-1) while sporting just a .892 save percentage away from Scotiabank Arena, where he is a remarkable 18-2-3 with a .927.

With Tampa turning it around with a couple of wins in a row (now four points back but with two more games played), two points tonight would go a long way to keeping the home-ice race comfortably uninteresting down the final stretch.


Head to Head: Senators vs. Maple Leafs

In the season-to-date statistics, the Leafs hold the advantage over the Senators in four out of five offensive categories and four out of five defensive categories.


Game Day Quotes

Sheldon Keefe on the lessons from the last game in Ottawa (a 5-4 shootout win after coughing up the lead late):

Most importantly for us, we feel like we have played really good hockey since then. If anything, the lesson from that game — and the ones we’ve played recently — is just that when you have leads, you have to take care of it and close the deal.

A game in here against Ottawa, as we have known over the years — even when there are not playoff spots at stake — are intense. They are a loud. The playoff intensity that Ottawa will bring will demand the best from us.

Keefe on the decision to start Ilya Samsonov tonight on the road and Matt Murray at home tomorrow:

It is not even so much about the results. It is more about the workload on the road and trying to even out those splits a little bit. It is something we have talked about throughout the season. Some of the injuries we have dealt with, the schedule hasn’t really worked out for it to be the case.

As we have looked at things down the stretch, it is not to say that Matt Murray won’t play on the road or Sammy won’t play at home, but as we looked at the weekend, I thought it was an easy decision because of that.

DJ Smith on the injury-decimated blue line and the difficulty of matching up against the offensive firepower of the Leafs:

It is what it is. Kleven came in and did his part. Now Jacob Bernard-Docker is coming in. They tell me he is playing really well. He has confidence. We need him to do the exact same thing.

There is no time to think about it. You just have to go. You have to find a way to win a game tonight. That’s it.

You just have to do your job. You can’t worry about what the other guys are doing. You do your job to the absolute best and give us every opportunity to win.

It is going to be short shifts. It is going to be trying to limit the odd-man rushes and stay out of the penalty box. All you can do is control what you can control. Make sure your game is good, and if we get enough guys that do their job and play at their best, we have a chance.

Smith on the challenge against the Leafs:

They’re a good team. They’re as good as anyone in the league. They’re one of the six, seven, or eight teams that you would say have a chance to win it all. They are built for that.

They are fairly healthy. Matthews is going all out right now. He is scoring, working, and checking. Their D core is loaded. They have some pretty good guys sitting out on the backend.

We know what we are up against. We are going to try to limit everything we can, but we have to score when we get our opportunities as well.

Smith on leaning on rookie defenseman Jake Sanderson amid all the injuries:

I was told that this is what he was, but you’re told that about so many players. The league can make or break you. It is a heck of a league.

One of the things with Jake is his off-ice, his training, his eating, and his taking care of himself. It allows him to do this. A lot of younger guys fall off late in the year when it gets to this.

He really relishes details, which helps him on the nights he doesn’t have his legs. He has really good detail. You don’t find that with young guys. It takes time for them to really realize that. That’s all young guys in the league — not just our young guys.

Jake loves details. He talks to Jack [Capuano] regularly about stick positioning and all of those little things. Those things allow him to do it on the nights he doesn’t have legs. The nights he has legs, it is easy for him — not easy, but he is a heck of a player.


Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines

Forwards
#19 Calle Järnkrok – #34 Auston Matthews – #16 Mitch Marner
#15 Alex Kerfoot – #91 John Tavares – #88 William Nylander
#58 Michael Bunting – #64 David Kämpf – #28 Sam Lafferty
#12 Zach Aston-Reese – #53 Radim Zohorna

Defensemen
#22 Jake McCabe – #78 T.J Brodie
#44 Morgan Rielly – #2 Luke Schenn
#55 Mark Giordano – #3 Justin Holl
#37 Timothy Liljegren

Goaltenders
Starter: #35 Ilya Samsonov
#30 Matt Murray

Extras: Erik Gustafsson (unavailable), Conor Timmins
Injured/Out:
Wayne Simmonds, Noel Acciari, Ryan O’Reilly, Bobby McMann, Nick Robertson, Jake Muzzin, Victor Mete


Ottawa Senators Projected Lines

Forwards
#7 Brady Tkachuk – #18 Tim Stutzle – #28 Claude Giroux
#12 Alex Debrincat – #57 Shane Pinto – #19 Drake Batherson
#21 Mathieu Joseph – #17 Ridly Greig – #27 Dylan Gambrell
#38 Patrick Brown – #47 Mark Kastelic  – #16 Austin Watson

Defensemen
#85 Jake Sanderson – #2 Artem Zub
#26 Erik Brannstrom – #24 Jacob Bernard-Docker
#43 Tyler Kleven – #5 Nick Holden

Goaltenders
Starter: #40 Mads Sogaard
#33 Cam Talbot

Injured: Jakob Chychrun, Thomas Chabot, Josh Norris, Parker Kelly, Anton Forsberg, Travis Hamonic