The Maple Leafs’ team plane made it through the winter storm for a Sunday night battle in Saint Paul against a hungry Wild team that’s lost three of its last four games (7:30 p.m. EST, Sportsnet Ontario).
Game Day Quotes
Craig Berube on the challenge defensively against the Wild, especially with Oliver Ekman-Larsson absent due to his baby’s arrival:
You have to do it together as a team. We’ll need five guys to help out tonight and really be on the right side of things. They have some elite defensemen over there who can really get up the ice. A lot of their offense comes from that.
Stay above those guys and beat them up the ice, and we have to have a five-man unit in our own zone doing the job tonight.
Berube on the areas to build on after collecting points in two consecutive games:
The compete and physicality have been good. I didn’t think we broke the puck out well enough as the game went along (in Buffalo). We botched some breakouts and didn’t advance it quickly enough to get out of our zone at times.
Berube on the energy the call-ups have injected into the lineup:
They’re proving themselves. They’re playing hard. It brings a lot of energy to our group. You can hear it on the bench. The guys are cheering them on.
It is nice to have that youth in there and the energy. They’ve been doing a good job.
We’re competing hard and playing physically. We’re doing a lot of good things, and there are things we could do better, too.
Berube on whether Bo Groulx has surprised him with his play so far:
He has. I wasn’t sure, with the minutes he is playing, how he is going to handle it, but he seems to handle it well. And it’s in all situations. I’ve put him in some pretty difficult situations in the defensive zone, on faceoffs, and on a number of different things. He has done really nice job on the penalty kill. He has been strong on pucks and physical and is playing the right way.
Berube on the specific challenges against a 38-17-12 Wild team:
We will need to defend well tonight, for sure.
We are going to have to shoot our way in. That’s one thing we can do better. We don’t look to shoot as our first option. We will need to do that tonight. They will protect and stay on the inside, but that is where you have to shoot your way in, get to the net, and find some dirty goals and some rebounds. That will be key tonight.
It will be important that we break the puck out properly tonight. That will be a big part of the game.
Wild head coach John Hynes on his team’s two straight losses:
I think it’s on me. We have had some routines with our teams that we felt were working, but in the last two games, I’ll look in the mirror. I think the team needs to look in the mirror. Maybe we switch some routines because it is certainly not good enough.
Practices, skates, optional skates, meetings, mindsets… It is in tandem. We have a good chemistry with how we go about our business and do things, but when I look at how we started the last two games, I think we have to look internally and say, “Okay, this was a routine that was working and was good and we started games on time, but now, it is different.”
Obviously, the preparation as individual players hasn’t been where it needs to be in the past two games.
Maple Leafs (28-27-12) vs. Wild (38-17-12): Head-to-Head Stats
via NaturalStatTrick.com & AdvancedHockeyStats.com
Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines
Forwards
#63 Matias Maccelli – #91 John Tavares – #88 William Nylander
#23 Matthew Knies – #11 Max Domi – #53 Easton Cowan
#81 Dakota Joshua – #29 Bo Groulx – #89 Nick Robertson
#18 Steven Lorentz – #26 Jacob Quillan – #19 Calle Jarnkrok
Defensemen
#22 Jake McCabe – #25 Brandon Carlo
#44 Morgan Rielly – #51 Philippe Myers
#2 Simon Benoit – #28 Troy Stecher
Goaltenders
Starter: #41 Anthony Stolarz
#60 Joseph Woll
Extras: Michael Pezzetta, Henry Thrun
Injured: Auston Matthews, Chris Tanev (LTIR)
Absent: Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Minnesota Wild Projected Lines
Forwards
#97 Kirill Kaprizov – #38 Ryan Hartman – #36 Mats Zuccarello
#90 Marcus Johansson – #14 Joel Eriksson Ek – #12 Matt Boldy
#71 Nick Foligno – #22 Danila Yurov – #91 Vladimir Tarasenko
#78 Nico Sturm – #47 Michael McCarron – #13 Yakov Trenin
Defensemen
#43 Quinn Hughes – #7 Brock Faber
#25 Jonas Brodin – #46 Jared Spurgeon
#5 Jacob Middleton – #24 Zach Bogosian
Goaltenders
Starter: #30 Jesper Wallstedt
#32 Filip Gustavsson
Injured: Marcus Foligno, Bobby Brink
