The Toronto Maple Leafs are back from a decent mid-week break to take on the Montreal Canadiens on home ice, a reprise of their season opener with an expectation of some lessons learned.
Fast Facts
| Puck Drop | November 7th @ 7:00 p.m. Scotiabank Arena, Toronto |
| Broadcast | TV: Sportsnet (National), TVA Sports (French) Radio: Sportsnet 590 The FAN Online: Sportsnet+ |
| Gameday Odds (Market Typical) | Maple Leafs +102, Canadiens -122 Maple Leafs +1.5 -245, Canadiens -1.5 +200 Goal Line 6.5 (Over -117, Under -103) |
About the Maple Leafs (8-7-2)
Toronto’s big news coming into this game is the return of forward John Tavares, who has been out of the lineup with a lower-body injury since October 15th. Tavares had been in the midst of one of his usual early-season slow starsts, but with four points in about a game and and a half leading up to his collision, the timing felt very unfortunate. Now, he needs to snowball his momentum again.
Some frustrations have already come within the fanbase with Tavares appearing certain to return to the top power play unit, taking Gavin McKenna’s place. When asked about it, McKenna gave a response that both felt wise beyond his years and typical of a teenager, saying he was understanding of the situtation and that he wasn’t going to get “butthurt” about it.
It’s a bit of a push-and-pull. Tavares has a history of being an elite powerplay performer and picked up three powerplay points in the last two games leading up to his injury, but had struggled to start the year prior to that, and the Leafs powerplay has continued it’s heightened productivity under McKenna, with him leading the team in on-ice goals per hour with a man advantage.
The question becomes whether the team beleives that the rise is due to their rookie phenom, or because the unit as a whole has tightened up. There’s likely a degree of both, but if you also believe Tavares can fall back into form, the unit half is probably the more important part. We’ll get a first look at how the decision pans out tonight.
About the Canadiens (10-3-3)
The Canadiens have had a pretty interesting start to this year. They don’t feel like they’re scoring at will like they did last year, but actually have a slightly higher goals per game. They have fewer players scoring clumps of goals than the powerhouse teams, or even compared to the Leafs, but basically everyone is getting on the board – Noah Dobson is the only player skater with more than three games played who doens’t have a goal yet.
Their shot metrics are better than last year, but still middling (and to their credit, midding is better than what Toronto’s done). Altogether, they feel like they’re making some strides in actual control of play, but don’t really feel like they should be on pace for an even better record than last year.
The answer to that might lie in goal, as Jacob Fowler has been an absolute revelation for them. Without him, the team has a 3-2-2 record, and with the 21-year-old rookie, they’re 7-1-1. Fowler is currently seventh in wins, seventh in goals against average, fourth in save percentage, and is one of only five goalies with multiple shutouts this year. Goaltenders are such a difficult position to have confidence in the projectabiilty of talent, but Fowler has been better than most at just about every level he’s played since junior, posting impressive results in the USHL, NCAA, the AHL, and in light backup minutes in with the Habs last year. It might be worth considering the possibilty that, once again, Montreal has found a way to find their guy in goal, a tradition as old as time.
Projected Lineups
| Toronto Maple Leafs Lines | Montreal Canadiens Lines |
|---|---|
| Easton Cowan – Auston Matthews – Jack Roslovic John Tavares – Nick Paul – William Nylander Dakota Joshua – Colton Sissons – Gavin McKenna Brandon Duhaime – Teddy Blueger – Zack MacEwen Jake McCabe – Darren Raddysh Morgan Rielly – Chris Tanev Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Troy Stecher | Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Juraj Slafkovsky Chris Kreider – Jake Evans – Josh Anderson Zack Bolduc – Phillip Danault – Alexandre Texier Alex Newhook – Oliver Kapanen – Kirby Dach Lane Hutson – Noah Dobson Kaiden Guhle – Alexandre Carrier Arber Xhekaj – Adam Engstrom |
| Starting Goalie: Sergei Bobrovsky 3-6-2, 3.27 GAA, 0.889 SV% Backing Up: Anthony Stolarz | Starting Goalie: Jacob Fowler 7-1-1, 2.17 GAA, 0.925 SV% Backing Up: Jakub Dobes |
With Tavares back, Vinni Lettieri comes out of the lineup, and I suspect will begin the process of heading back down to the Marlies soon. The 31-year-old picked up one goal and 14 penalty minutes in his eight games with the big club. As commendable as it is that Lettieri has found a way to draw in for anywhere between a game and half a season of NHL time in eight of the last ten years, it feels like this is the line where he’s solidified as a AAAA vet moving forward.
Montreal’s lineup is pretty significantly shuffled from when Toronto last faced them, with a couple of injury-driven swap outs and a substantial amount of rearrangement. Notably, their top line from last year has been reunited, hoping they can fill the net on a team that hasn’t done too much of that beneath them.
Last Matchup
The Maple Leafs last faced the Canadiens in the season opener, all the way back in September (still getting used to that). Toronto gave an early impression of an explosive game to come when William Nylander opened the scoring 48 seconds into the first period, but ultimately failed to generate much of interest from there, allowing a Habs goal in each period en route to a 3-2 defeat.
Injuries Of Note
Outside of Tavares’ return, there is no more news on the injury front for the Maple Leafs.
The Canadiens are missing a roster regular in each major group in the lineup. Ivan Demidov is week-to-week with a fractured ankle, with his timeline stretching out a little longer than initially expected. On the blue line, Mike Matheson is about a week away from returning from a lower-body injury. In goal, Sam Montembeault has been two weeks from returning for the last month, but given the performances they’re getting right now, they’re not going to rush him back in.
Streaks Of Note
- These two teams have split their last ten games against each other, though if you include the preseason, it becomes much more of a rout in Montreal’s favour. Including those, they’ve won six in a row in this head to head. Even without them, it’s still four.
- Auston Matthews leads the Maple Leafs in goals (6) assists (8, tied) points (14) and shots on goal (26) in the team’s last ten games. Jack Roslovic has been no slouch either, putting up a very similar statline (5-8-13-23) at a fraction of the pedigree.
- Morgan Reilly also has eight assists in Toronto’s last ten games, the most productive of Toronto’s defencemen. The six-man group still has no goals across that stretch that aren’t from Troy Stecher.
- Cole Caufield is the Canadiens’ most productive player over their last ten games, notching a team-leading eight goals, 11 points, and 30 shots, along with three assists. Juraj Slafkovsky and Lane Hutson each have the most assists on the team in that stretch with eight.
- Nick Suzuki has been more productive over his personal last ten games (six goals, nine assists), but that stretch has been broken up by injury.
Early Thoughts
This game could go a lot of ways. Toronto could get a rush from the combination of rest and return of Tavares and make a statement of revenge for their debut defeat, especially if they catch Fowler on an off night.
On the other hand, Montreal love playing spoiler to the Leafs in weird fashions, so this could also end up being one of those games where the Habs win 2-1 and the winner comes from Josh Anderson bouncing a puck off of a flying beer can. That’s not to say the Canadiens need luck to win this game – they’re the deeper team right now and are favoured for a reason – it’s just the chaos we’re used to seeing.
Either way, Toronto/Montreal on a Saturday night is one of the great Canadian traditions, and you’re almost always guaranteed a fun night when it goes down. We expect the same today.
