The Maple Leafs hope to avenge a trap-game home loss/dropped point to the Sharks earlier this month when they pay their annual visit to San Jose (10:30 p.m. EST, Sportsnet Ontario).

Worth noting:

Game Day Quotes

Craig Berube on lessons from the team’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Sharks on March 3:

They have a lot of skill, and their power play is clicking. It has been really good in the last 10 games. I think it is clicking around a 28% clip. Celebrini is a really good player, and so is the Smith kid. They have some talented guys who can skate and make plays. You can’t come in here and take anyone lightly, including this team.

We have to check well. We have to be on our toes. We have to be good and solid defensively and manage the hockey puck. Sometimes, you tend to get a little loose coming in here or other buildings where the teams aren’t in the playoffs. You try to do too much with the puck, and you end up turning it over in bad areas and not playing to the identity of the team. The key tonight is playing to our identity.

If we go back to that game, we were up 2-0. We scored two power-play goals. We didn’t generate a ton at five-on-five against them. We were a little bit gassed, but they came back in that game and ended up winning it in the shootout.

This team is not going to give up. They play with a lot of juice. They are excited. Even though they know where they are at in the standings, they have good young players coming and a new identity. They are feeling good. They’re playing, and they’re going to play us hard tonight.

Morgan Rielly on the areas for improvement the team is focusing on in the final 11 games: 

Everything.

The power play has been good. We want to improve the penalty kill. We want to improve chances against and chances for.

This is a time, as players, when you are extremely focused on doing whatever you can to get your game to where it needs to be. As a team, you just want to be playing your best hockey of the year.

For us, it is playing fast, breaking pucks out, being good on the forecheck, execution, and details. We are pretty focused on all areas, but we are focused on our identity as well and what makes us successful.

Rielly on the level of comfort with his partner when comparing his first game with Brando Carlo to now: 

A lot more comfortable. I have really enjoyed playing with him. It has been good. We have built it to a point where we feel pretty good about what we are doing.

As a pairing, we want to be really reliable for the team, move the puck, have good gaps, and break the puck out. We are going to continue to work at it, but it has been a lot of fun playing with him so far.

Macklin Celebrini on learning the league and gelling with his linemates in his first season: 

Some of these teams like Toronto and Colorado have been together for so long. They already know where each other is going to be and where the space is with their different tendencies. I think we are still trying to learn that. It takes years. It takes time to grow it.

Celebrini on living with former Shark and Leaf Joe Thornton during his rookie season: 

It has been amazing. His wife and kids — the whole family — have taken me in and made me feel at home. Whatever I need, they are there. That makes my life a little bit easier when trying to adjust to this whole thing, having somewhere that feels like home.

Head-to-Head Stats: Maple Leafs (43-25-3) vs. Sharks (19-42-9)

In the 2024-25 regular season statistics, Toronto holds the advantage in five out of five offensive categories and five out of five defensive categories.

Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines

Forwards
#23 Matthew Knies — #34 Auston Matthews — #16 Mitch Marner
#74 Bobby McMann — #91 John Tavares — #88 William Nylander
#24 Scott Laughton — #11 Max Domi — #89 Nick Robertson
#18 Steven Lorentz — #64 David Kampf  — #19 Calle Jarnkrok

Defensemen
#22 Jake McCabe — #8 Chris Tanev
#44 Morgan Rielly — #25 Brandon Carlo
#2 Simon Benoit — #95 Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Goaltenders
Starter: #60 Joseph Woll
#41 Anthony Stolarz

Extras: Pontus Holmberg, Philippe Myers
Injured (LTIR): Jani Hakanpää, Max Pacioretty

San Jose Sharks Projected Lines

Forwards
#72 William Eklund — #71 Macklin Celebrini — #2 Will Smith
#51 Collin Graf — #21 Alex Wennberg — #73 Tyler Toffoli
#53 Ty Dellandrea — #54 Patrick Giles — #46 Cam Lund
#91 Carl Grundstrom — #63 Zach Ostapchuk — #23 Barclay Goodrow

Defensemen
#38 Mario Ferraro — #85 Shakir Mukhamadullin
#42 Luca Cagnoni — #5 Vincent Desharnais
#36 Lucas Carlsson — #37 Timothy Liljegren

Goaltenders
Starter: #40 Alexandar Georgiev
#31 Georgi Romanov

Injured: Logan Couture, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Jan Rutta, Henry Thrun

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