Toronto Maple Leafs @ Montréal Canadiens
07:00 PM at Centre Bell
Watch on: CBC, TVAS, SN, NHLN
The Leafs last game was away on March 7 against the Boston Bruins, which Toronto lost by a score of 4-1 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 36-19-8 for a 0.635 Points %.
The Montréal Canadiens last played away on March 7 against the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canadiens lost by a score of 4-1 in regulation, and their current league record is 24-29-10 for a 0.460 Points %.
Them
Prior to the deadline, Montréal was very bad. They'd already made their big deal in moving Sean Monahan to the Jets. The only move of significance they made on Friday was sending Jake Allen to New Jersey. The Canadiens had already settled on Sam Montembeault as their number one goalie, so that change has no effect.
They are bad, but what flavour of bad? Not too dissimilar to the Sabres. They are worse overall than Buffalo at shotshare, and their power play is poor. Their only positive is goaltending as Montembeault is having a good season, which is something that never steers you wrong. Go all in on Sam, guys.
A theme of these previews this season has been bad to mediocre teams being slightly better defensively than expected. Montréal is not one of those teams. They are in the league basement with the Sharks, Chicago and St. Louis for Expected Goals Against.
Lines
Arpon Basu via Daily Faceoff
Cole Caufield - Nick Suzuki - Juraj Slafkovsky
Joshua Roy - Alex Newhook - Joel Armia
Brendan Gallagher - Jake Evans - Josh Anderson
Michael Pezzetta - Tanner Pearson - Rafael Harvey-Pinard
Michael Matheson - Kaiden Guhle
Arber Xhekaj - David Savard
Jayden Struble - Jordan Harris
Sam Montembeault - likely starter
Cayden Primeau
Us
The Leafs took deadline day off in Montréal as they still are battling some illness, and so we don't quite have a handle on the new lineup yet. Matt Knies is expected to play and did not suffer any lasting damage.
Connor Dewar is ready to play, and wearing #24. Joel Edmundson will wear #20. Simon Benoit is the odd man out on defence along with Connor Timmins who is now on LTIR.
Mitch Marner was absent and does not appear to be playing – subject to confirmation.
Lines
David Alter from morning skate
Tyler Bertuzzi - Auston Matthews - William Nylander
Max Domi - John Tavares - Calle Järnkrok
Matthew Knies - David Kämpf - Bobby McMann
Pontus Holmberg - Connor Dewar - Ryan Reaves
T.J. Brodie - Jake McCabe
Morgan Rielly - Ilya Lyubushkin
Joel Edmundson - Timothy Liljegren
Ilya Samsonov
Joe Woll
The Game
It is my very great joy to report that after this game the Leafs a: have four whole days off. It's been a jam-packed few weeks, and we can all do with having absence make our hearts grow fonder. And b: there are only 18 regular season games remaining.
On one of the Boston broadcasts there was an absurd discussion, designed, near as I can tell, to rile up the Leafs fans a little harder, about how the Leafs needed to win those games to catch Boston. Look. The Leafs can't catch Boston. You don't even need to do the math. Boston would have to go on the biggest losing streak in their history and the whole thing is another example of confusing a miniscule probability with plausibility.
On the other end of the scale, the Red Wings and the Lightning are eight points back. They can't catch the Leafs. The Leafs have actually been cemented into third place in the Atlantic for some time. The opportunity is there now to play the depth more, rest the top echelon of players more, work hard on integrating the new defenders while not sweating over every point.
So you better believe you are going to see players off the fourth line late in the third. Lyubushkin and Edmundson will be tested against harder competition to find their level. You'll hate every lineup choice, every roster decision, and none of it matters. Getting to the playoffs as healthy and ready as possible is now "the game" every game.
