Ahead of Saturday’s game against Montreal, Jim Hiller confirmed that John Tavares and Jack Roslovic will play, explained the decision to dress Artur Akhtyamov as the backup, and discussed the Leafs’ blue-line scoring and Dakota Joshua’s fit with Gavin McKenna.
Is John Tavares good to go tonight?
Hiller: John and Roslovic both will play, yep.
The Habs had a bit of a hiccup against Winnipeg the other night, but generally, they seem to be on a bit of a roll. What stands out about the challenge tonight?
Hiller: They’re a good team. They proved that last year and had a good run in the playoffs. I think a good playoff run just really helps the team get to the next level. You understand how hard hockey is at that time of the year, and you can carry that over. And their first line right now is strong, right?
Do you intend to rest one of your goalies by dressing a different backup?
Hiller: Yeah, we’re going to do that. Akhtyamov will back up tonight.
What did you see the last time you did that that led to success?
Hiller: I don’t know. It’s hard to know if it’s measurable on a one-off, and it’s probably hard to measure in any case. It just seems to make sense to prioritize rest, and we have a very capable goalie in Arty. For our organization right now, it works.
With two practice days and a day off this week, what sort of impact are you hoping that will have tonight?
Hiller: We’ve talked about this. We haven’t practiced a lot. We were able to touch on a couple of things that we really felt we needed to touch up. It’s been a good week for us. You hope it translates into tonight, and we see some things.
In the Utah game, we did not have our legs early. We saw that we got better as the game went on, but we need to start with that same energy in the first period tonight.
What’s been your sense of Oliver Ekman-Larsson this season? Where do you think he’s at?
Hiller: He’s been up and down, like most of our players. We’ve been a little bit inconsistent. But when O’s on his game — and we’ve seen that plenty this year — he’s a very, very important player for us. Just generally, our consistency as a team could be better.
We’ve got him on the power play now. He’s penalty killing. He’s given us some good minutes here lately.
What do you like about having two defensemen on the second power-play unit?
Hiller: Depending on how long the first unit goes, sometimes it’s nice when the other team is bringing their guy out of the box that you have two D on the ice, because it can get dangerous in a hurry. A lot of shorthanded goals happen late in that scenario, or it turns into five-on-five, but you have tired people out there and sometimes a forward.
Listen, we’re trying to score, but that’s always an added benefit. There’s less chaos on the bench when you have two D out there. But we like O. He’s got a long history of playing the power play. He’s got a great wrist shot when he gets that opportunity to sift it in.
We’ve asked you a lot about Darren Raddysh not scoring, but you haven’t gotten a lot of goals from the defense generally. How much room do you see for growth there?
Hiller: I think they’re going to come. If you look at the players, just look at their track records. We’ve got a veteran D corps. Mo scores, Raddy scores, McCabe scores, and O scores. There are a lot of guys who have scored a number of goals in the NHL as D. We’re looking forward to that punch. The nights that Stecher scored… I think he had two game-winning goals in a row, right? And they both came from the D.
Dakota Joshua was talking about how Gavin McKenna can make plays you don’t see coming. It’s been a limited sample, but what have you liked about Joshua and McKenna together?
Hiller: They played together in Vancouver, and we didn’t start that way. We switched that way. The second period was outstanding, I think, for Gavin, just like his third period.
We’re just hoping, now that John’s in, we can get some chemistry. The lines have been all over the place through these injuries. We just want to try to get that settled down and try to find some chemistry in four lines.
There are two big bodies. Give Gavin the puck, let him do his thing, and those guys should be in and around the net.
Is there any update on Kirill Marchenko?
Hiller: No, I don’t have one. No.
Toronto vs. Montreal - November 7
Maple Leafs Projected Lines
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Ahead of Saturday’s game against Montreal, Jim Hiller confirmed that John Tavares and Jack Roslovic will play, explained the decision to dress Artur Akhtyamov...
