The Upcoming Week Ahead for the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off a hardluck loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night. 

The Toronto Maple Leafs went down in overtime for the sixth time this season. If they were a bit luckier, they would be 7-0 in overtime and lead the league in points. 

The Bolts were down 2-1 entering the third, but got extremely lucky and had a harf-dozen power-plays, most of them gifts.  Murray probably wishes he had the winner, but who cares?  You don’t get mad about coin-flips.

Here is the rundown on the upcoming week for the Leafs:

Toronto Maple Leafs Upcoming Week

The Leafs have Sunday and Monday off, then will fly to Dallas to play an 8:30 games against the Stars. I erroneously mentioned after last night’s game that this would be the debut of the Robertson Bros. Throw-down, but I forgot about earlier in the year when Nick Robertson scored twice as the Leafs beat Dallas for their only OT victory so far this year.

I thought Nick looked pretty good against Tampa, though the negative people who can’t help sharing their every thought won’t let you forget for 2 seconds that he’s been 12 games without a goal (note: it’s difficult to break into the NHL, let alone playing sporadically without a defined role, and doing so on a contending team that will bench you (justly) if you don’t perform).

After beating Dallas on Tuesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs will fly home and play the Kings on Thursday.

Then it’s another day off, then Calgary at home Saturday night.

In fact, the Leafs schedule for the entire month is Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, with the only difference being that they don’t play on Christmas Eve, which is a Saturday.

They have no long road trips, no long home-stands, and they don’t play a single back-to-back. They play Colorado and Tampa, but they don’t really have the kind of gauntlet they had to run at the beginning of November.

It’s a nice schedule for a team that will inevitably have to cool off a bit at some point.

To be honest, the upcoming schedule is a bit lame.  Three Western Teams, and none of them are the fun ones.  Sure it’s easier if you don’t have to play Edmonton and Colorado, but it’s not as fun to watch.

Dallas, LA and Calgary may not be the most exciting group of teams, but if they keep winning, then who cares? There is even a chance T.J Brodie plays soon.  Not to mention Marner’s point streak and the potential debut of Connor Timmins on the Leafs blueline.