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Toronto Maple Leafs @ Carolina Hurricanes - Game 70
06:00 PM at PNC Arena
Watch on: ESPN+, HULU, SNO

The Leafs last game was yesterday at home against the Edmonton Oilers, which Toronto won by a score of 6-3 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 40-20-9 for a 0.645 Points %.

The Carolina Hurricanes last played away on March 22 against the Washington Capitals. The Hurricanes lost by a score of 7-6 in a shootout, and their current league record is 44-20-7 for a 0.669 Points %.

Them

The Leafs just played Carolina, and I thought they played them well in a game so full of penalties, it was hard to get a flow. It reminded me of the playoffs two years ago against Tampa where there was an obvious crackdown.

Because the order of goals had the Leafs get a lead and then "blow it", the overriding feeling was the Leafs were bad. However, the overall game was one where the Leafs kept pace, but didn't do anything vigorous.

The Hurricanes are in a position like the Oilers where they likely can't take first place and definitely won't fall out of second. The pressure is off a little.

They've had time since we last met to get used to their new top line player in Jake Guentzel, building on the team strength in depth of forward quality, possession, puck dominance.

Lines

Walt Ruff via Daily Faceoff from their last game

Jake Guentzel - Sebastian Aho - Seth Jarvis
Teuvo Teravainen - Evgeny Kuznetsov - Martin Necas
Andrei Svechnikov - Jordan Staal - Jordan Martinook
Brendan Lemieux - Jesperi Kotkaniemi - Stefan Noesen

Jaccob Slavin - Brent Burns
Brady Skjei - Brett Pesce
Dmitry Orlov - Jalen Chatfield

Pyotr Kochetkov
Frederik Andersen

Us

The Leafs took advantage of three goalies on the roster to send Joe Woll on ahead to Raleigh yesterday, so he's the only Leafs player not arriving tired from a game the night before. This allowed Martin Jones to finish last night's game when Ilya Samsonov left after stretching hard to not make a save. He is apparently fine though, no injury.

Open question is how are the sick Tyler Bertuzzi and Ilya Lyubushkin? Will they play?

Lines below are from last night, consider it all subject to change if players become available.

Lines

Mark Masters via Daily Faceoff

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Max Domi
Bobby McMann - John Tavares - William Nylander
Connor Dewar - David Kämpf - Noah Gregor
Nicholas Robertson - Pontus Holmberg - Ryan Reaves

Morgan Rielly - Jake McCabe
Joel Edmundson - Timothy Liljegren
Simon Benoit - Conor Timmins

Joe Woll
Martin Jones or Ilya Samsonov

The Game

The Leafs laid down a 46% Corsi and 55% Expected Goals against the Oilers, who are the team capable of dominating a game as much as the Hurricanes. The Leafs got closer to their net than they did to the Leafs' net (except on the power play).

That's what they need to do again, with speed, focus and taking advantage of any mistake the Hurricanes give them. The main difference in opponents is that the scoring quality is spread deeper, so the bottom six has its work cut out for it defensively.

Oh, and stay out of the box!

Note the start time of this game. Get your dinner ready and sit down to watch a 6 pm family-friendly gametime. Just think, this way you can go to bed early and get to Monday even quicker.

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