The Toronto Maple Leafs faceoff against the relentless Pittsburgh Penguins tonight at 7pm.
Lately, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been shaky recently, almost losing to the Ottawa Senators and losing to the Buffalo Sabers on Sunday night. While the Penguins have continued to be dominant at 7-2-1 in their last 10 games.
If I were to be optimistic about the Leafs facing the Penguins there are a few valid points to make.
Recently the Penguins have been winning their games but their underlying predictive metrics have not been up to par with what they have been for the rest of the season. I suspect this has a lot to do with their star defensemen in John Marino and Brian Dumoulin being injured.
Jack Johnson has been forced into the top-4 for the Penguins which is something the Leafs top-6 forward group should be able to take advantage of.
Moving on to the newest development in Leaf land, the new lineup in the morning skate.
Toronto Maple Leafs lineup
Mark Masters of TSN just tweeted out the Toronto Maple Leafs lineup in the morning skate and it does not look good. There have been lots of changes and I am unsure if they are welcoming. Here’s how the lines are said to be:
Hyman-Matthews-Marner
Nylander-Tavares-Kerfoot
Engvall-Gauthier-Kapanen
Clifford-Speeza-Timashov
Korshkov
Muzzin-Holl
Sandin-Barrie
Dermott-Marincin
Marchment-Liljegren
Andersen in starters net
So this lineup comes with a lot to unpack.
Starting from the top of the lineup.
I’m not sure if Nylander on the left side is a mistake or that is how it actually is, but the Leafs have been trying him on his off wing recently.
As far as the third line goes, Engvall and Kapanen look to fit in those positions….but Frederik Gauthier on the third line. Some may say Gauthier on the third line brings some horror movie vibes because it does for me.
I realize Gauthier has improved a lot, he’s a really nice guy, and he works really hard, but if he is the role of anything more than the fourth line makes the forward group look more like Edmonton’s than the Leafs.
Moving on to the fourth line, there aren’t really any true problems with it, I suppose it would be nice to get Korshkov into another game after he played so well in the previous game and scored his first goal.
For the defense, the Muzzin-Holl pairing stays the same as expected but there are some more serious moves on the defensive corps.
Liligren Out
20-year-old Timothy Liljegren is taken out of the lineup. This may create some controversy among fans, but he really was not performing up to par. Liljegren has put up an xGF% of 41.75% so far in his NHL career, which is awful, to say the least. Keefe also doesn’t seem to trust him much, he is playing around 11 minutes a night which is very minimal for any defensemen.
Marincin will take over Liljegren’s spot in the top-6. I would like to point out, as much as many will hate on Martin Marincin, he never puts up numbers as atrocious as what Liljegren has, in fact, most probably underrated his ability.
Some have assumed that the Leafs are only playing Marincin because today is his birthday but I believe it is because Liljegren has not been up to par with his play so far.
Rasmus Sandin will have the impossible task of playing with Tyson Barrie, I assume both will be matched up against the lower-level competition, while Dermott and Marincin will take the secondary matchup which would mean notable leafkiller Evgeni Malkin.
As far as the goaltending goes, there is no goaltending controversy at this point in time, Frederik Andersen is the starter and although he has not been good this season he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Before this season, Andersen was the most consistent goaltender in the league along with John Gibson. You can see it in his raw SV% which was the same for consecutive years in a row sitting at an amazing 917SV%.
I think everyone would put their money on Andersen coming back to his real self this season or else the Leafs will be screwed. Andersen has been the Toronto Maple Leafs MVP since he has been on the team for every season besides the current season, I think it’s most likely he turns it around rather than continues this terrible stretch.
For game 1 of the 2 game series between Pittsburgh, I expect it to be a good battle between the two playoff contenders in the east. If I were a betting man I would take the Leafs on this one, mostly due to the severity of the Penguins injuries on defense.
Moneypuck’s model agrees with me on this one, and they have the Leafs at 54.6% to win tonight.
The big boys will have to come out big if the team is going to take this game tonight because as far as the Toronto Maple Leafs lineup goes, I don’t think anything looks amazing other than the top 2 lines. Andersen will likely have to face a lot of Crosby and Malkin which will be a test for him tonight.