Tonight, the Toronto Maple Leafs take on the Detroit Red Wings at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan.
The main goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight: hold the Wings to five goals or less!
While Red Wings fans are frustrated after an ugly start to the season, there are a few bright spots.
Rookie defenseman, Cholowski has been outstanding for the Red Wings. In three games played, the 20 year old native of Langley, British Columbia has registered 1 goal, 2 assists, a 22:10 ATOI, 7 blocks and a 50.5 corsi-for percentage (CF%). Unfortunately for Red Wings fans, Cholowski will likely miss tonight’s game and Saturday’s game against the Boston Bruins, per a report from Ted Kulfan of The Detroit News. He had sustained an injury in Monday night’s affair against the Anaheim Ducks.
Even though Cholowski is out of the lineup, the Red Wings offense still has a few assets that the Toronto Maple Leafs defensive core needs to look out for. So far this season, Darryl Larkin, Gustav Nyquist and Tyler Bertuzzi have been the most effective. The trio has combined for 3 goal and 5 assists.
Aside from the trio, there are a still few other Red Wings to look out for even though they have been rather silent on the score sheet to open the season. Rookie defenseman, Flip Hronek, who hails from Hradec Králové, Czech Republic is playing on the top line next to Dan Dekeyser. In addition, he’s quarterbacking the top power-play unit. So, it won’t be long before Hronek grabs his first points of the season. Perhaps, it’s tonight.
Lastly, the Toronto Maple Leafs should be on the look out for Michael Rasmussen. He was taken in the first round of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft and made his Red Wings debut on October 4th against the Columbus Blue Jackets. While it took Rasmussen a few games to find his groove and is playing on the third line, Red Wings head coach, Jeff Blashill has a lot of faith in him. Blashill has him featured on the top power-play unit as the centre and the assumption is the Blashill figures Rasmussen to be one of his best play-makers.
Toronto Maple Leafs
In terms of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the squad has looked outstanding in the offensive zone to begin the season. John Tavares and Auston Matthews have been lighting up the scoreboard like its Christmas. As long as the duo remains on the same power-play unit, you can expect these two to have a monstrous season.
Aside from the duo, it appears that Mike Babcock is content with his lineup that he featured in Dallas. Per Mark Masters of TSN, Babcock rolled out the same lines that he used in the game against Dallas in practice.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the best teams in the NHL, and the Red Wings are the worst. Even the Senators have a better lineup that this year’s Red Wings. This game should be no problem.
The game kicks off at approximately 7:35 pm EST. The game can be found on TSN4 in the Greater Toronto Area and on Fox Sportsnet-Detroit in the Greater Detroit Area.
stats from NHL.com and hockey-reference.com