Toronto Maple Leafs: When Will Trevor Moore Debut?

Tonight, the Toronto Maple Leafs take on the San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center in San Jose, California.

My question for Mike Babcock is a simple one. Will Toronto Maple Leafs forward, Trevor Moore make his debut tonight? It’s a simple question. The answer is either yes or no.

(Editor’s Note: We were late getting this up and it doesn’t look like it will happen).

Moore has been called up twice in the last few weeks and still hasn’t made his debut. The 23 year old native of Thousand Oaks, California should have made his debut on Tuesday night when the Toronto Maple Leafs played the Los Angeles Kings. Moore’s family would have had a very short drive to the Staples Center to see him debut. Instead, that didn’t happen.

Hopefully, Moore will lace up his skates tonight against the Sharks. He’s definitely proven at the AHL-level that he is ready for a challenge. So far, Moore has played in 12 games this season with the Toronto Marlies. After 12 games in the AHL, he’s totaled 9 goals and 3 assists. Right now at the AHL-level, he’s a point per game forward. It’s a big improvement from last season in which he posted 12 goals and 21 assists in 68 games. In all-likelihood, it’s just a hot streak that Moore was having with the Marlies, but it still is very intriguing to see.

While it hasn’t been announced if Moore will play tonight, if he does he’ll likely be played on the fourth line. The Toronto Maple Leafs should ease him into the NHL and shouldn’t have him play a significant amount of minutes.

San Jose Sharks

Unfortunately for the Toronto Maple Leafs and their fan base, the Sharks are a tough team to play against. At this very moment, they are in first place in the Pacific Division and have a record of 10-6-3. In addition, they’ve been on a hot streak as of late. They have a two game winning streak as they had defeated Nashville Predators and Calgary Flames earlier this week.

Before I look at individual players on the Sharks, it’s worth noting that their special teams has its ups and downs. In terms of their penalty kill unit, they are the second best in the NHL, behind the Arizona Coyotes. The Sharks own a 88.3 PK% and will be a solid challenge for the Toronto Maple Leafs power-play unit. On the other hand, their power-play unit has been struggling and currently owns a 17.7 PP%.

In terms of individuals on the Sharks, they have many assets. The best Shark this season has been Brent Burns. Burns currently leads the Sharks in both assists and points. At this point, he has registered 3 goals, 18 assists, 1 PPG, 7 PPP, 57.9 CF%, 17 take-aways and a 24:14 TOI/60.

While Burns has been outstanding, the Sharks still have a multitude of excellent players including Timo Meier, Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl, Evander Kane, Joe Pavelski, Erik Karlsson and Martin Jones. It’s fair to say that this will be a tough match-up for the Maple Leafs, but hopefully they’ll be able to slow down their assets and grab another win on their California road trip.

My prediction is that the Toronto Maple Leafs will defeat the Sharks by a score of 3-2.

The game will start at approximately 10:35 pm EST/7:35 pm PST and the game can be found on Sportsnet Ontario.

stats from NHL.com and hockey-reference.com