The Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the Montreal Canadiens tonight in Montreal.
Despite the fact that the Montreal Canadiens somehow went to the Stanley Cup Final last season, these are two teams going in opposite directions. The Toronto Maple Leafs are a Cup Contender looking to win the President’s Trophy, while the Canadiens recently fired their coach and their GM, and are dreaming of getting the first overall pick.
The Leafs are coming off a pretty rough loss to the Blues on Saturday, and will play their first game since acquiring Ilya Lyubushkin.
Montreal, meanwhile, will be looking for their 11th win of the season.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Montreal Canadiens
While it’s exciting to see where Lyubushkin will slot in to the Leafs lineup, we will have to wait for another game to see what happens, as Mark Masters is reporting that Lyubushkin will join the team Tuesday in Columbus.
Rasmus Sandin was demoted to the Marlies, but it was just a paper transaction. Expect him and Liljegren (the same thing happened to him last week) to both be in tonight’s lineup.
In other news, newly acquired Ryan Dzingel was immediately placed on waivers, and if he clears there will be no cap hit and he’ll just be a depth option in the AHL. It’s really quite impressive that the Leafs used their only bad contract, a guy who had cleared waivers, and were able to upgrade their blueline and improve their depth and salary cap situation in one move.
I keep hearing regret over the draft pick, but it’s either a 2nd or a 3rd, and any time you could get a guaranteed NHL player for such a pick, you’d be happy about it. If there was even a tiny chance that that player could play in the top four of a contending team’s blue-line, I think you’d considering it a very successful draft pick.
So, if you think about it properly, the trade is really a future 2nd round draft pick for a potential top four right-handed defenseman who brings a quality the team is pretty much unanimously agreed upon to need more of.
I just think it’s funny how valuable people consider a pick before it’s made. You could trade former second round pick Travis Dermot and no one would say anything.
Tonight’s game will see the Toronto Maple Leafs start Petr Mrazek, and the Canadiens haven’t confirmed their goalie yet.