Toronto Maple Leafs to Host Senators

After suffering a 6-3 loss against the Ottawa Senators in October, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be looking for redemption tonight at the Air Canada Centre.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off of a frustrating loss on Monday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Toronto Maple Leafs had a 2-0 lead on the Blue Jackets until the bitter end of the third period. In typical Toronto Maple Leafs fashion, the defense let them down. They allowed two goals with 4:40 left in the game and ended up losing to the Blue Jackets in overtime.

The Leafs defensive pairings will need to play much better tonight if they expect to grab a win against the Senators in this cross-provincial battle.

Maple Leafs Lines

After a frustrating loss, Mike Babcock has reverted back to his strategy of messing with his lines. This time, he has decided to scratch Travis Dermott and insert Connor Carrick back into the lineup.

Babcock has gone delusional. Personally, I don’t know what he sees in Roman Polak.

What I see in Roman Polak is a 225 lb stack of bricks that takes dumb penalties. I’m sure what Babcock sees in Polak, but he must see some potential.

My question to Babcock is when will we see the potential. Or will we ever.

All Polak does is take penalty after penalty. Somehow he gets lucky from time to time in the offensive zone and grabs an assist.

If Babcock has decided to punish Dermott for his hooking penalty on Matt Calvert of the Blue Jackets, then he needs to re-think his strategy. How many times has Polak been penalized all year and sat in the press box the next game?

My hope is that Dermott is only scratched for one game because if Babcock leaves Dermott up in the press box for a while it will due to damage to his development. If Babcock doesn’t want to play Dermott, then he should speak to Lou Lamoriello and send Dermott to the Toronto Marlies.

Rough Season for the Ottawa Senators

Let’s move to the Senators.

The Senators jumped from being one of the best teams in the NHL to one of the worst. After making it to the Eastern Conference finals last season, the Senators have posted a horrific record of 14-18-9 and sit in the seventh place in the Atlantic Division.

In early November, the Senators thought that a shake up would pave the way for an offensive surge. So, they worked out a three-way trade with the Nashville Predators and the Colorado Avalanche. The Senators swapped out Kyle Turris with Matt Duchene. Unfortunately for the Senators, Duchene’s change of scenery wasn’t a good match. Since the trade, Duchene has posted 6 goals and 4 assists in 27 games.

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While Duchene is slumping, Turris has been outstanding for Nashville. Turris has totaled 5 goals and 14 assists in 27 games for the Predators.

I guess Pierre Dorion, the general manager of the Senators wishes that he had a time machine sitting in his closet so he could go back to early November and stop the trade from ever happening.

There is also a ton of speculation that the Senators aren’t done moving contracts as Mike Hoffman, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Cody Ceci and Erik Karlsson have all been mentioned in trade rumors.

Ugly Night For the Sens

The Senators are also coming off of an ugly loss against the Chicago Blackhawks at home. Last night against Chicago, they allowed 8 goals on 43 shots. They had terrible goaltending as Craig Anderson had a SV% of .846 and Mike Condon, who replaced Anderson, had a SV% of .765. In addition, the Senators’ defense plagued them as well. Dion Phaneuf, Karlsson and Ben Harpur totaled 6 PIM and paved the way for two Blackhawk power-play goals.

If the Senators expect to put up a fight against the Leafs, they’ll need to shore up their defensive and goaltending issues.

Next: What is Babcock Thinking?

Maple Leafs & Senators Prediction

I doubt that the Senators’ issues will be fixed over night and I predict that the Leafs will cream the Senators tonight with a score of 6-2.

The Senators simply don’t have vigorous defense and the Leafs offense should be able to out-play them and get the puck to the net.