With Chris Tanev back in the lineup and Dakota Joshua making his season debut, can the Maple Leafs salvage a split of their Western Canada + Seattle road trip with a win against the 32nd-overall Vancouver Canucks? (7:00 p.m. EST, Sportsnet).
Game Day Quotes
Canucks head coach Manny Malhotra on the challenge against the Leafs’ offense:
They’re going to be a hungry team. Prior to these two losses, they were buzzing at a good clip and feeling confident in their game. We expect them to have a response.
We know the personnel they have over there, and we know what they’re capable of, again, when given time and space. Our focus will be internal in terms of playing a good structural game and limiting the opportunities that their big boys get.
Malhotra on the energy in the building when the Leafs visit:
Yeah, it’s definitely fun. Hockey Night in Canada with a good crowd in the building—it’s definitely an energy that the guys feed off of.
Dakoa Joshua on missing the start of the season:
It’s not fun. You put in a lot of hard work, a lot of hours by yourself trying to get ready, and then just having it not come together as you’d like is tough. But it’s part of the game, and it makes when you get back that much more special.
Joshua on when his injury issue arose:
It was at the end of last year, and it just took a long time to come around. I thought that maybe it was there to start camp, but then after getting out there, it just wasn’t right, so I wasn’t able to go.
It was a frustrating one, just taking so long to feel right and then thinking you’re there, but then put it to the test and it’s not. That’s just frustrating. Happy to be in there now.
Joshua on the timing of his season debut coming against his former team:
It’s just funny how it worked out to be that way, and there were some good years here and great memories. Just to be back here is cool.
Chris Tanev on his injury:
Not going to get into specifics. Obviously, something happened in Colorado there that didn’t feel great, but I’m sort of over that now, and hopefully, as I get playing here, it goes away.
Tanev on the concern about re-aggravating the injury:
There’s always concern when playing hockey. It’s a physical sport, and things happen. But we talked to a lot of doctors, and we’re sort of confident in the diagnosis we got. It’s different than what happened last year, so that’s all I’ll say. It’s a lot better than what happened last year.
Tanev on his excitement about returning to game action against his former team:
Honestly, I’m so excited to be on the ice here. I feel like I remember being 20 years old at camp, stepping on this ice, and it sort of brings back a ton of memories. It’s very, very fun.
Tanev on the areas for improvement for the team:
We’re just trying to get connected more. Be a five-man unit in our end, through the neutral zone, and in the O zone, and just be a bit cleaner when we can with pucks and not turning over as many pucks.
But we’ve done a lot of good things, and special teams have been awesome. It’s been a huge bright spot for us, both the power play and penalty kill. We’re looking to continue to build off that, and clean up some of our things five-on-five and continue to get better.
Jim Hiller on the decision to pair Tanev with Morgan Rielly:
We really liked how McCabe and Raddysh have been playing together, so we don’t want to break that up. They’ve played together before. I think it makes a pretty easy transition for both of them.
Hiller on what Dakota Joshua can bring to the lineup:
The first thing I noticed is how big he is, right? We all like that. You put him on the skates, he’s a big man.
It’s corner work, it’s wall work, and it’s in front of the net. I think all those areas are areas that we’ve maybe struggled at times. He can really fill a void for us there. He hasn’t played in a long time, but we expect him to be ready to roll and have a good game for us.
Hiller on using Friday’s practice time to address areas for improvement in the team’s game:
We’ve practiced maybe two or three times in the last month, so it’s really, really been something that I believe has hurt our game.
We took some time today to go a little slower and work through some things. And November is going to set up pretty well for us that way. I’m not going to tell you what they were, but I think we made some progress in some areas that we’ve been struggling with.
Hiller on cleaning up the team’s line changes:
It’s an important part of the game when you go through chances. A lot of times, a good chunk of them come off of line changes and being organized coming out of it, and also getting on and off the ice quickly. That’s an area of the game we wanted to touch up.
Hiller on the decision to start Anthony Stolarz:
Oh, there was no decision. He was scheduled to play.
