Editor In Leaf
Fansided

Toronto Maple Leafs In For Extremely Tough Test Against Biggest Rival

By Eric Cruikshank

TORONTO, ON - OCTOBER 19: Alexander Kerfoot #15 of the Toronto Maple Leafs smiles in a break against the Boston Bruins during the second period at the Scotiabank Arena on October 19, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - OCTOBER 19: Alexander Kerfoot #15 of the Toronto Maple Leafs smiles in a break against the Boston Bruins during the second period at the Scotiabank Arena on October 19, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

The Toronto Maple Leafs have quite the task ahead of them without Alex Kerfoot

After it was announced Friday morning that Toronto Maple Leafs forward Alex Kerfoot would be out indefinitely due to a facial injury, I couldn’t help but laugh.

To hide the pain, of course.

There is not a whole lot to be happy about in Leaf land right now, and this just adds to the list of things that the Leafs will have to power through for the coming weeks ahead.

The 25-year-old center has been an instrumental part of a third line that has played pretty well thus far, posting 13 points through the first 20 games of the season. (Stats courtesy of HockeyDB.com)

Jason Spezza will be taking over Kerfoot’s role on the third line in between Ilya Mikheyev and Trevor Moore, and honestly I do not know why. The Leafs called up Nic Petan for a reason, and this would be a great chance to slot him in the lineup. This leaves the the fourth line looking very questionable ahead of Friday’s game.

The Leafs now have a fourth line which consists of Frederik Gauthier, Dmytro Timashov, and Nick Shore. The one shining light on the fourth line has been Nick Shore. While Shore seems almost invisible out there sometimes due to the lack of ice time he has, he is playing exceptionally well on the defensive end.

Shore is first on the Leafs roster for on-ice save percentage among players who have played 15 or more games, despite starting in the defensive zone 78% of the time he is on the ice. (Stats courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com)

Regardless of these defensive numbers, Nick Shore has not shown the ability to produce offence at all, but then again, nobody on this fourth line has.

It seems like we are going game-by-game hoping there will be some change we all want, but there

Bruins November Struggles

Despite having two of the top four scorers in the league, the Boston Bruins have lost four games in a row. It seems that days of the top line leading the Bruins to wins have slowed down, and the Bruins depth players have not been performing well.

Boston’s goaltending has been solid for the entire season up until this point. In just the month of November the Bruins have given up four or more goals four times. This includes a game against Florida in which the Bruins were up 4-0 at the end of the second period, and ended up losing 5-4 in the shootout.

It seems as if the Leafs caught the Bruins at a bad time, as they are also struggling with some crucial injuries. Jake Debrusk, Tory Krug, and Karson Kuhlman are all out of tonight’s lineup, leaving a pretty good opportunity for the depth forwards on either side to decide the outcome of this game.

Next. He's Not Earning His Six Million and Has to Go. dark

While this is not the ideal lineup we were hoping for when watching a Leafs-Bruins rivalry matchup, it should be interesting to see how each team deals with their injuries moving forward.

Home/Analysis