Toronto Maple Leafs @ Carolina Hurricanes
07:30 PM at Lenovo Center
Watch on: ESPN+, HULU, TSN4

The Leafs last game was away on January 7 against the Philadelphia Flyers, which Toronto won by a score of 3-2 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 27-13-2 for a 0.667 Points %.

The Carolina Hurricanes last played away on January 7 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Hurricanes lost by a score of 3-2 in regulation, and their current league record is 24-15-2 for a 0.610 Points %.

Them

Formerly dominant in all things possession and constant leaders in the Metro, Carolina Now has to contend with Washington and New Jersey ahead of them in the standings. They have become part of a triumvirate of good teams with a host of bad ones below them much like the Atlantic looked like for years.

The Hurricanes do lead the NHL in Corsi like usual, with an astonishing 60% right now. They fall back, as they always have done, when shot quality is considered by Expected Goals. They are second to the Devils at 54%. And as has always been true, they do not convert Expected Goals to goals very well, and their GF% is 51% 14th in the NHL. Every time someone says some team is playing like the Hurricanes, I have to laugh, because no one plays like them. That's a lot of hard work on puck possession to get to average GF%.

They are succeeding with their overwhelming puck dominance and some good goaltending. Their power play is very average, but interestingly, they actual score almost right on their Expected Goals rate. However, their best goalie has been Frederik Andersen, who had knee surgery in November and only resumed skating yesterday. Second best is Pyotr Kochetkov, and everyone else has been pretty terrible to the point they signed Dustin Tokarski.

Lines

Walt Ruff via Daily Faceoff from the January 8 practice

Seth Jarvis - Sebastian Aho - Jack Roslovic
Eric Robinson - Jesperi Kotkaniemi - Martin Necas
Andrei Svechnikov - Jordan Staal - Jordan Martinook
Juha Jaaska - Jack Drury - Jackson Blake

Jaccob Slavin - Brent Burns
Dmitry Orlov - Jalen Chatfield
Ty Smith - Sean Walker

Pyotr Kochetkov - likely starter
Dustin Tokarski

Us

Leafs have some options at forward to tweak the lines in minor ways from the last lineup listed below, but they only have Marshall Rifai right now as an extra defender.

Lines

Last Game (2025-01-07) via Daily Faceoff

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Bobby McMann - John Tavares - William Nylander
Max Pacioretty - Max Domi - Steven Lorentz
Connor Dewar - David Kampf - Ryan Reaves

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

Joe Woll
Dennis Hildeby

The Game

The Hurricanes' best event is Toronto's worst. If the Leafs struggled to have the puck against the Flyers, this is a challenge of a very different order. And for all Carolina struggles to score at times, if the Leafs defend as badly as they did at times last game they will have another problem.

This game is supposed to be hard. The Hurricanes are a the best in the NHL at several measures. Toronto has to bring their full game – all four lines, all three pairs – no nonsensical brain cramp moments.

Game Coverage