The Toronto Maple Leafs have been off for Christmas, but are back tonight.
The Toronto Maple Leafs entered the Christmas break by sending Denis Malgin to Colorado in exchange for Dryden Hunt, then declaring themselves the new best team in the NHL by absolutely hammering the Tampa Bay Lightning.
They also dusted the Flyers for good measure, and entered the break on 17-3-5 run since October 30th.
That is an incredible points-percentage of .780 over just slightly less than 33% of the season.
Incroyable!
Toronto Maple Leafs vs St. Louis Blues
Despite having one of the only reliable star goalies in the world, the Blues are having a pretty rough season and are currently 21st in the NHL overall standings.
At 16-16-2 the Blues are a .500 team, but would miss the playoffs if the season ended today.
You’d think with their roster, and goalie, that they’d be a better team, but the Blue are actually a bit lucky in that their current ranking is 21st but they are the 24th best team by Expected Goals.
The Blues will host the Leafs tonight, possibly without their best player, Jordan Kyrou. Kyrou was injured last week in a game where he had a hattrick, and will probably play, if for no other reason than I forgot to remove him off the IR in my hockey pool.
The Leafs are still without Nick Robertson, Rasmus Sandin and Morgan Rielly, so they are down a significant amount of talent, and their bottom six looks pretty blaise and boring, just the way they like it.
The Blue Lines looks absolutely horrible with the 38 year old Mark Giordano and Justin Holl on the top pairing, followed by having to dress Jordie Benn and Conor Timmins.
It looks horrible on paper, but somehow its been working. Timmins has been solid since acquired, and bizarrely, Jordie Benn has been really good every time the Leafs have been forced to dress him.
You really hope its a case of the reporters just write it down weird, but the lines listed that I saw have Timothy Liljegren on the 3rd pairing. He should be getting, my far, the most icetime on the team, but we’ll see.
On the season, Brodie is first in average 5v5 ice time per game at 17:37, followed by Holl and Rielly who are both over 17 minutes. Fourth is Liljegren at 16:14 then Gio at 16:00.
Last five games it’s been Brodie, followed by Holl, Giordano, Timmins and then Liljegren.
The Toronto Maple Leafs keep winning, so they keep dressing this lineup, but the numbers are pretty clear about Liljegren being their best defender. It will be interesting to watch as the Leafs continue to transition him into being their #1.
The Leafs shouldn’t have too much trouble with the Blues, but there is a reason you actually have to play the games…Ilya Samsonov gets the net.