The clear plot line for the Toronto Maple Leafs as they take on the Dallas Stars is a story of redemption; it’s on the team to make up for their most recent loss.
The Toronto Maple Leafs caused a media and fan meltdown by losing to the historically terrible Coyotes earlier in the week.
The Stars are off to a good start, and the Leafs will have to contend with Dallas’ triple threat of Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz and Mason Marchment who are leading the way scoring-wise so far.
That’s before getting to secondary threats Joe Pavelski, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin; all of whom have aged, but still know how to score in the NHL.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Dallas
The Toronto Maple Leafs will counter with Ilya Samsonov, who is now the starter after Matt Murray was injured last Saturday.
The Leafs will be without Muzzin and that Means that Victor Mete will get a chance to play. Nick Robertson will play his first game of the year.
Robertson is the big beneficiary of injuries to Matt Murray and Jake Muzzin early on. He found himself demoted to the Toronto Marlies, purely on the basis of being waivers exempt, after putting up an impressive pre-season showing.
Now he finds himself back with the Toronto Maple Leafs, courtesy of the cap space that Murray being on long-term injured reserve frees up.
After Erik Kallgren took the loss against Arizona, Ilya Samsonov will be the expected starter and frankly, it was a sensible decision to play Kallgren in the team’s fourth game in six days. That loss wasn’t on the goalie.
With any luck it means Samsonov is fighting fit and raring to go; especially as Jake Oettinger is proving no pushover early-on at the opposite end of the ice, though it appears the Leafs might get Scott Wedgewood at least.
As ever, key to the Toronto Maple Leafs getting a good result is ensuring that William Nylander and John Tavares continue their recent point scoring form and that the team find a way to get Auston Matthews going.
Just one goal and one assist in the team’s four games suggests a bad start, but the underlying numbers – including averaging more than five shots per game – are as good or better than last year, so he’s going to start scoring eventually.
Of course, all of the focus on offense is forgetting that there’s turmoil on the Toronto Maple Leafs blue-line; injuries to Timothy Liljegren and now Jake Muzzin mean there might well be some shuffling.
The expectation per Daily Faceoff is that Mark Giordano will line up alongside Victor Mete, while Ramsus Sandin steps in with Justin Holl.
The latter of those two pairings sounds slightly concerning, giving both have somewhat of a penchant for offense, but we shall see. Expect the pairings to be shuffled on the fly, given Giordano has history with Brodie and Keefe has already tried Holl with Rielly.
All in all, it’s possibly not the ideal fixture for the team to bounce back from a feeble loss; but they can’t have it easy, so maybe it is best that they may need to grit it out.