Washington Capitals @ Toronto Maple Leafs
07:00 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on: TVAS, TSN4, MNMT

The Leafs last game was at home on December 4 against the Nashville Predators, which Toronto won by a score of 3-2 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 16-7-2 for a 0.680 Points %.

The Washington Capitals last played at home on December 3 against the San Jose Sharks. The Capitals lost by a score of 2-1 in overtime, and their current league record is 17-6-2 for a 0.720 Points %.

Them

By Points % Washington is first in the east, and Toronto is second. But the Leafs just played this team a few weeks ago, and they didn't quite look like the best of the east (either of them, to be honest). I think that's partly because the Capitals are a good at everything team that isn't getting exceptional results in any one area.

They have good offence, league average defending, a lot of puck luck/skill, some good but not outstanding goaltending, a good but not outstanding power play and a very good but not... you get the picture, the PK is the same.

This all things in moderation theme continues right down to the player level:

Moneypuck.com

No one is bad (top left), no one is outstandingly good (bottom right). Everyone clusters around the very good pace of Expected Goals For and the okay Expected Goals Against. By Evolving Hockey's xG model, the Capitals are only weak at in-zone defending. They have a high Corsi Against rate, almost the same as the Leafs but they can't handle the flurry of shots as well as the Leafs have.

They're not really the very best team in the east, but they have a solid fundamental game where they have good shotshare and very good quality of shots for that means they can handle their weaknesses and don't need as much good fortune to win games. I doubt they'll have a team Sh% of 12.4 all season (tops in the NHL) but that's not actually too far away from plausible.

Lines

Last Game (2024-12-03) via Daily Faceoff

Connor McMichael - Dylan Strome - Tom Wilson
Aliaksei Protas - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Taylor Raddysh
Hendrix Lapierre - Lars Eller - Andrew Mangiapane
Brandon Duhaime - Nic Dowd - Ivan Miroshnichenko

Martin Fehervary - John Carlson
Rasmus Sandin - Matt Roy
Jakob Chychrun - Trevor van Riemsdyk

Charlie Lindgren - possible starter as Thompson got the previous game
Logan Thompson

Us

No one is quite ready (or eligible to return to the lineup). Jake McCabe, Max Pacioretty and Max Domi were all at morning skate, but as extras. Alex Nylander is the odd man out again.

Lines

Mark Masters from morning skate

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Pontus Holmberg - John Tavares - William Nylander
Nicholas Robertson - Fraser Minten - Steven Lorentz
Nikita Grebenkin - Connor Dewar - Ryan Reaves

Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Chris Tanev
Morgan Rielly - Philippe Myers
Simon Benoit - Conor Timmins

Joe Woll
Anthony Stolarz - starter

The Game

The prior game against Washington was the first Jani Hakanpää experiment, and he quickly got shunted down the lineup. Auston Matthews was out of the lineup, the Leafs played a zero offence game at times, fell behind, and then tied it up late. John Tavares won it overtime. This was the game that featured a long and effective shift from David Kämpf in OT and host of goal reviews.

The things that trouble me now about the Leafs – long periods of ineffective play and difficulty maintaining possession – were troubling me in that game a month ago. The Leafs don't all perform in a tight knot around the dull/good line on one of those charts. They are much more variable in talent because that is who they are. At the moment, they are adding up to a team winning with goaltending more than anything else.

Don't spend an entire period flatlined on the shot chart, guys. That's all I'm asking.

Game Coverage