The Toronto Maple Leafs are 7-1 without Auston Matthews, their best player and the second-best player in the entire NHL, and will have to try to make it 8-1 tonight with a game against their arch-rivals, the Florida Panthers.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have ridden their insane Auston Matthew-less record to first place in the Atlantic Division, three points up on the Panthers.
If there is such a thing as a "must win" game in November, this is it. Points count for the same now as they do in March, and if the Leafs win tonight they will have a five points lead on the Panthers with a game in hand.
It's early, but given the importance of being the team out of Tampa, Florida and Toronto that doesn't have to play one of the other ones in the first round, winning tonight is absolutely crucial.
There is this misguided perception that Tampa has fallen off a bit, but they still have both Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman playing at Hart/Norris level and are one of the most dangerous teams in the NHL.
Auston Matthews to miss 9th game as the Toronto Maple Leafs host the Panthers
Mitch Marner as two points in each of the games that Auston Matthews has missed, save one. He is scoring at a career best rate since Matthews is out, and remains only slightly behind in the NHL scoring race.
Marner is currently sitting just outside the Art Ross, Selke, and Hart competitions at the quarter-mark of the NHL season, but if he keeps up his recent pace for much longer he's going to insert himself into all three conversations.
It should be noted that he has the same amount of points as Connor McDavid this year entering play tonight.
The Leafs will be looking for their fifth win in a row, and will start Anthony Stolarz, even though Joseph Woll is coming off a shut-out and then a second win and consecutive great game, and hasn't played in ten days, even though he has some of the best stats in the NHL.
Of course the Leafs have to get Stolarz in net because they can't have him taking a full two weeks off, but this does demonstrate the downside of the two-goalie system.
The Leafs won't have an easy time tonight because the Panthers have lost four in a row and six of their last seven.