Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews Looking to End “Cold” Steak

The Toronto Maple Leafs will attempt to get revenge on the Vancouver Canucks tonight, on the road in Vancouver.

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Canucks will play at 7PM and I have to be honest here, if I was a Canucks fan, I would be pretty upset about having my Saturday Night hockey ruined by a 4PM start to accommodate another team’s fanbase and the TV Ratings.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m psyched that I can watch the game with my son (10 PM starts are too late for an eight year old) but it seems like the start time should be listed as “4 PM, PST (No offense)”

The Leafs were downed 3-1 by the Canucks on Thursday night, in a game that the Leafs can easily excuse due to schedule fatigue.  Tonight, the Leafs should be rested and ready to go.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Vancouver Canucks

The Leafs are 3-1 vs Vancouver so far this year, and will look to add to that tonight with Freddie Andersen in net.  I saw on Twitter, from Sportsnet, that the Canucks are 11 and 2 vs the Leafs at home in their last 13, so that gives be confidence, because, even if the Leafs weren’t a vastly superior team, odds are that kind of lopsided record corrects itself anyways.

The Leafs won’t be getting anyone back for this game – Wayne Simmonds is still injured and Michasel Hutchinson will be backing up Freddie instead of Jack Campbell.  It is assumed that the Leafs will once again use Alex Kerfoot on a line with Tavares and Nylander (I like it) and stick with their Hyman-Engvall-Mikheyev line to get the hard work done (I really like it).

In case you are wondering, here are some other things I like: The Skydiggers, Twin Peaks, my new dog Benji and finding money in old coats.

The big news tonight will be about Auston Matthews: can he overcome this horrific two-game pointsless streak?  He4 has actually been four games without a goal, doubling his longest previous streak so far this year. The hilarious thing is that during this “slump” Matthews has averaged almost five shots per game and has been as dominant as he always is.  Look for him to get at least a hattrick tonight, maybe a career high five or six goals.  He’s due!

It’s actually been ten days since Matthews scored a goal, but to give you an idea of how crazy the NHL schedule actually is this year, the Leafs are playing their fifth game in eight nights. Matthews actually scored, then got two days off, then missed two games, then came back and played two games, and all of that happened in under ten days.

The Leafs will leave Vancouver to embark on a three-game series against the Winnipeg Jets this upcoming Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.