The Toronto Maple Leafs won four of five games to finish the month of February.
The Toronto Maple Leafs then embarked on a pivotal three game western road trip, which began on Monday with a loss to the San Jose Sharks.
The game wasn’t exactly the Leafs best, but their high powered offense still almost pulled a loss out of the fire. Despite not playing their best game, the Leafs were one amazing save from Martin Jones and two bad bounces away from a victory.
That’s not bad, but the depleted Leafs roster will roll into L.A today to take on the Kings, and they will be hopping for a better performance.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs L.A Kings
The Leafs will take on the Kings tonight at 10:30, and Freddie Andersen will be in net for the Leafs.
Andersen hasn’t been at his best this season, but the Toronto Maple Leafs will need him to be at the top of his game if they have any hope of defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of this spring’s playoffs, so expect him to start almost every game down the stretch.
Rasmus Sandin will get back into the lineup tonight. The Leafs will still be without Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin and Cody Ceci, however. The latter two are due back next week.
Sandin coming out of the lineup was a surprise on Monday, as he’s been a rather good player so far. If there is one problem, it’s been that when the Leafs get bad goaltending, he seems to be on the ice for it.
Sandin is getting just 88% goaltending when he’s been on the ice this year. Part of that is that he’s a rookie who has been asked to take on a bigger role with injuries piling up around him, but part of it is just random. (stats from naturalstattrick.com).
Overall, I think Sandin has been good, and probably the rest was good for him. You can tell he’s got another level, and the Leafs are going to have another star player for teams to contend with when he hits it.
I don’t think he’s been great for the last few games, but they’d also probably like to insulate him a bit more, and you can’t exactly do that with half your regulars out of the lineup. For the long-term, this might actually be a beneficial stretch for him.
With Sandin in, that probably means that probably means Rosen is out, but we’ll have to wait and see.
The Kings aren’t a great team, but this is still a must win for Toronto tonight. They simply can’t afford to lose to two bad teams in consecutive nights at this time of the year. But hey, if it happens, try and relax: with five regulars out of the lineup, even the L.A Kings are not an easy opponent.