There will be no John Tavares or Morgan Rielly, but it’s a night all about taking care of business for the Maple Leafs against the 30th-ranked Ducks (7:00 p.m. EST, Sportsnet Ontario/West/Pacific, CBC).
Game Day Quotes
Radko Gudas on his Game 5 OT celebration in Joseph Woll’s face in Toronto last May:
I was celebrating the goal we’d scored finally. People here still can’t sleep over it, so that’s really something. But it’s one of the moments that happens in that second and in an emotional high.
Ryan Reaves on whether there is going to be any extra emotion with Gudas returning to Toronto for his first game at the SBA since Game 5 OT:
I hope so. I don’t think anyone is going to be chasing him around the ice, but I will have my eye on him for sure. He is going to play his game like he always does. We are going to play ours.
Sheldon Keefe on the takeaways from the team’s overtime win over Anaheim in January:
They had some guys out at the time. It will be a bit of a different look here today.
There is a lot of skill and ability to make plays. Some of their defense is really active and involved.
We thought we played really well down in that game and controlled the game for the most part, but it was right there and it was right.
It has been a bit since. It feels like it has been longer, honestly. It feels like it was in November or December. January isn’t that far back, but those are the things that stand out to me when we play them.
That said, this is a little bit of a different lineup tonight than what we saw from them.
Keefe on the decision to start Martin Jones in net tonight:
Just to kind of break it out and break up Sammy’s workload. When we leave today, we have a practice tomorrow, we play a 12 p.m. game in St. Louis, and then we have a back-to-back coming up.
I thought it was a good time to have a different goaltender in tonight just to break that workload. That way, Sammy would end up getting two of the next three after this. If he played tonight, with the quick turnaround for the 12 p.m. start, it starts to get to be too much from here.
It is less about tonight. It is more forecasting ahead, but also, it’s been two games for Samsonov already this week, and it is a busy stretch upcoming.
Ducks coach Greg Cronin on what he remembers about the #Leafs' 2-1 OT win in Anaheim on Jan. 3: "They had the puck most of the game, goalie (Lukas Dostal) was great, we were lucky to get a point." Toronto's 104 shot attempts were the most they've had in a game this season.
— Terry Koshan 🇺🇦 (@koshtorontosun) February 17, 2024
Head-to-Head Stats: Maple Leafs vs. Ducks
In the season-to-date statistics, the Leafs hold the advantage over the Ducks in five out of five offensive categories and three out of five defensive categories.
Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines
Forwards
#23 Matthew Knies – #34 Auston Matthews – #16 Mitch Marner
#59 Tyler Bertuzzi – #11 Max Domi – #88 William Nylander
#74 Bobby McMann – #29 Pontus Holmberg – #89 Nick Robertson
#18 Noah Gregor – #64 David Kampf – #75 Ryan Reaves
Defensemen
#2 Simon Benoit – #22 Jake McCabe
#78 TJ Brodie – #37 Timothy Liljegren
#48 Max Lajoie – #85 William Lagesson
Goaltenders
Starter: #31 Martin Jones
#35 Ilya Samsonov
Suspended: Morgan Rielly
Injured/Out: Calle Jarnkrok, Joseph Woll, Conor Timmins, Martin Jones, Mark Giordano, John Tavares
Anaheim Ducks Projected Lines
Forwards
#14 Adam Henrique – #91 Leo Carlsson – #16 Ryan Strome
#77 Frank Vatrano – #23 Mason McTavish – #19 Troy Terry
#49 Max Jones – #21 Isac Lundestrom – #33 Jakob Silfverberg
#44 Ross Johnston – #39 Sam Carrick – #50 Bo Groulx
Defensemen
Gustav Lindstrom – #4 Cam Fowler
#5 Urho Vaakanainen – #7 Radko Gudas
#34 Pavel Mintyukov – #46 Ilya Lyubushkin
Goaltenders
Starter: #1 Lukas Dostal
#36 John Gibson
