Preview & GDT: Toronto Maple Leafs at Ottawa Senators in Saskatoon

Toronto Maple Leafs at Ottawa Senators: Preseason

Time: 9:30 pm Eastern Time

Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Broadcast/Streaming: NHLN-US (JIP), TSN5, TSN4

Frederik Andersen, injured in the Olympic qualifier for Denmark, is set to play his first game since that unfortunate event a month ago.  He is supposed to start the game, and then they will decide how long he plays as the game goes on.

We need to get to know him a little bit.  First thing, he’s big.  Everyone boggles at it.  He is listed at 6’4” and 230 lb, which makes him bigger than Garret Sparks, and the tallest man on the roster (tied with Martin Marincin) and second only to Roman Polak in mass.

He is a very agile goalie, for all of that, and has been reported to be in the best shape of his career right now.  In the Olympic qualifier, he was hung out to dry on a lot of odd man rushes, and has very bad stats, but he looked about like the goalies at the World Cup did in their first tuneup games—not very reliable in traffic, but good on everything else.

Here he is a few days ago:

This will be our second look at Auston Matthews and William Nylander, but with no Nazem Kadri or Tyler Bozak on this trip, and the Leafs as the visiting team, the both will play centre and may see tougher competition than they did the first game. This seems to be intentional.

Babcock notes no Bozak or Kadri in the lineup tonight means Matthews and Nylander will get all the attention from the Sens "real centres."

— Lance Hornby (@sunhornby) October 4, 2016

Since we’re still in preseason and the rosters have surprises on them, I’ll start you off with the announced names and numbers.  Lines will become available closer to game time.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Forwards

Defence

Goaltenders

Ottawa Senators

Forwards

Defence

Goaltenders

What we get out of this is that both teams are coming closer to final day rosters.  This is not going to be the easy outing the previous game was, where the Leafs could play badly, sometimes very badly, and still look exciting and good while winning the game.

Erik Karlsson is one of those NHL D-men Mike Babcock talked about after his first practice back with the team where he showed less enthusiasm for the new players than the fans do.  Mark Methot and Codi Ceci are two more. Seeing how our rookies to against them should be instructive.

In nets we get the first many delightful Andersen-Anderson matchups, at least for part of the game.  I can only hope that Sens player Ryan Dzingel works out so we can have Dzingel-Dzierkals someday too.

There are surplus bodies on the Leafs roster on defence, so expect some cuts at warmup or a little bit before.

Hints at lines from morning skate:

@HennyTweets probable top 2 lines for Tor tonite could see Nylander between JVR and Hyman and Matthews with Marner and Greening. #TMLtalk

— Paul Hendrick (@HennyTweets) October 4, 2016

In the meantime, Go Leafs Go!

Bonus Content

Brooks Laich who is from the neighbourhood: