Toronto Maple Leafs Need 4 Points From Back-to-Back Vs Bad Teams

The Toronto Maple Leafs will host a rare Friday Night game tonight vs the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have recently taken five of six points from three of the NHL’s best teams, most recently losing in overtime to Vegas on Monday night.

Tonight’s game will feature Erik Kallgren starting with Keith Petruzzelli backing up.

Tomorrow the Leafs will host the Canucks, and it is possible that Matt Murray will play.  The Leafs goaltender has been out since the start of the season, having played in just one game so far.

Ilya Samsonov remains injured, but likely not for too long.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Pittsburgh Penguins

The Leafs currently are tenth in the NHL by points-percentage, but they are seven points behind the Bruins for top spot in the Atlantic.

The Bruins are 12-2, which is an insane record, but it’s still early and the Leafs have lots of time to catch them.  Winning the division is important because no one wants to face Tampa, Florida or Boston in the first round, and that’s what happens if you don’t.

The Leafs are ninth in Corsi, tenth in Expected Goals, 8th in goaltending and 27th in shooting percentage.  They are tenth in combined special teams.

Though the stats say the Leafs are right about were they should be, based on their play, there is room for improvement in the shooting percentage department.

There is also room to improve their play.

Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner have been fine, but they haven’t done what they can.  The fact that David Kampf still leads the team in 5v5 goals a month into the season is insane.

Eventually, Matthews will score like he always does, and the Leafs will start deserving to win more games, and they’ll start winning more games that they don’t deserve to.

To make it 14 games and only win one game you didn’t deserve to win, while still clocking in with   over 60%  points percentage, is pretty good. It’s solid indication for future performance.

This team has been juggling constant injuries, and working in an entirely new bottom-half of the roster.  They’ve used Erik Kalgren for almost half their games, and their best defenseman has only played twice. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Their current record is OK, but it will get better.

This weekend should be pretty easy for them.  The Penguins are an aged team whose superstars probably aren’t good enough to float an entire team of no-name depth players any more.  The Canucks are in competition for the worst team in the league.

Four points is a possibility, and a necessity.