Toronto Maple Leafs to Play Rare Afternoon Game on a Monday

The Toronto Maple Leafs will do something unusual today – they’ll play a game in the middle of the day.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will face off against the Carolina Hurricanes later this afternoon.

In goal will be your #1 team MVP Frederik Andersen, taking the net back from back-up Michael Hutchinson who redeemed himself with a near-shut-out on Saturday in a victory against the Detroit Red Wings.

The Hurricanes goalie has not been confirmed, but it will likely be Peter Mrazek.  If not, ex-Leaf James Riemer is likely to get the call.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Hurricanes

The Toronto Maple Leafs have currently won four games in a row, and are now 10-4 since Sheldon Keefe took over for Mike Babcock.

The only team in the NHL to have more points during this run is the Penguins.  The Leafs are now only two wins back of the Bruins (who have nearly half-a-dozen loser points, and are massively overrated).

The Leafs are second in the Atlantic, nine points back of Boston.

The current four game winning streak is the Leafs best of the season so far, and they’d love to stretch it to five before taking a short rest for the Holidays.

After today, they’re off until the 27th when they face the New Jersey Devils.

Strangely, the Leafs also got the 24th,25th and 26th of November off as well.

Saturday saw the Leafs beat the Red Wings with a solid third period that followed the benching of Nylander and Kapanen in the second.

This is great news to the casual Leafs fans who don’t realize how good Nylander is, but it will be even better news if it results in a big game from him today.

As great as Nylander is – and he is an elite 5v5 player – he is occasionally lazy on the backcheck, something that is unacceptable in the Leafs high-pressure system.

Nylander had three points and was the Leafs best player Friday night against the Rangers, but if Keefe is willing to bench his stars, it will go a long way with the team.

And nobody is above a good benching, as last week reigning MVP and scoring champ Nikita Kucherov was sat for a period after being lazy on the backcheck.

I would expect a multi-point effort from the Leafs best 5v5 right winger today.

The last time the Leafs and Hurricanes played an afternoon game, it was a complete blow out in favor of the Toronto Maple Leafs, so maybe we’ll get lucky today and witness something similar.