The Toronto Maple Leafs will host the Philadelphia Flyers at home this afternoon.
I would much have preferred the Toronto Maple Leafs to play this evening when I am home for work, but for reasons I am yet to have explained to me, I am not consulted about scheduling.
The bad news about this game is that the Leafs have placed Rasmus Sandin on the IR with a neck injury he suffered from.
If you click on this post from yesterday about Sandin’s injury, there is a chart in there that shows that he’s been, arguably, the best defenseman in the NHL this year at 5v5.
The Leafs are going to miss Sandin more than they miss Morgan Rielly and way more than they missed TJ Brodie.
Hopefully this is just a precaution and he is back after Christmas.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Flyers
The Flyers are a terrible team who deserve to be terrible because everyone knows full well what kind of BS you have to deal with when you hire John Tortorella and they still did it.
It’s like hiring a wrestling villain to coach your team.
Mark Giordano – Justin Holl
Jordie Benn – Timothy Liljegren
TJ Brodie – Conor Timmins
That’s the defense the Leafs are going to dress today, and…yikes. On paper that’s ugly as hell, but Jordie Benn and Conor Timmins and Justin Holl have performed well this year, so hopefully they can keep it going.
Dyrden Hunt will not be making his debut today, despite it seeming like Zach Aston-Reese was going to sit out for him originally.
Ilya Samsonov will get the start, and hopefully he’ll be a lot better than he was against Washington on Saturday. He’s been one of the best goalies in the NHL this year so far, so I see no reason to doubt him yet.
What you can expect from the Leafs today is a multi-goal effort from Auston Matthews. The guy is due to score a couple as he has just one single multi-goal game on the year.
Sure, his game-to-game consistency is impressive, but I’d just like to see a mini-explosion is all.
A win tonight and some scores going their way in other games could see the Toronto Maple Leafs hit the Christmas break second overall in the NHL. Their reward for finishing second overall would be a first round matchup against the team that has made the Finals three years in a row.
Then again, this is a league that schedules their most popular team at 2PM when 99% of the people who want to watch the game are at work or school.