Toronto Maple Leafs vs Ottawa Senators
7:00 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on TVA, SN

The Leafs last game was against the Tampa Bay Lightning on November 6,
which Toronto won by a score of 6-5 in OT. The Leafs have a record of 6-4-2 so far.

Ottawa last played on November 4 against Tampa, and they lost 6-4. Their record is 4-6-0 so far.

So the Sens are well rested after losing the Lightning, and the Leafs poured it all out to beat them two days later.

Them

The Sens are losing a lot while putting up Expected Goals and Corsi percentages worse than the Leafs terrible results so far this season. Their offence and defence are both much worse than league average, and their only saving grace is a good pair of special teams. Not excellent, but good enough to get them some goals.

Both of their goalies have had poor results.

The buzz around the team is all about fans being tired of D.J. Smith, and Brady Tkachuk and Claude Giroux speaking in support of the coach.

Well, the fans want you to win, Sens. Just not tonight, okay?

Lines

Claire Hanna via Daily Faceoff Lines are from practice a couple of days ago.

Brady Tkachuk - Josh Norris - Drake Batherson
Mathieu Joseph - Tim Stützle - Claude Giroux
Dominik Kubalik - Rourke Chartier - Vladimir Tarasenko
Parker Kelly - Roby Jarventie - Zack MacEwen

Jake Sanderson - Artem Zub
Jakob Chychrun - Jacob Bernard-Docker
Tyler Kleven - Travis Hamonic

Anton Forsberg - possible starter
Joonas Korpisalo

Us

Both Conor Timmins and Jake McCabe participated in morning skate, per Mark Masters, but it appears that McCabe is not ready yet. Sheldon Keefe said last week that Timmins is, "a ways away yet."

The team that came back and won it vs the Lightning is unchanged for this game. One of the issues that Keefe cited as contributing to recent play was the fatigue of the defence.

Given that Ryan Reaves played 4:31 in all situations last game and was benched a some point in the second period, why not just play 11/7? Perhaps we'll see that when McCabe is better. Or recall Bobby McMann and try his energy game on the fourth line while Reaves can go sit in the pressbox.

Lines

Matt Knies - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Tyler Bertuzzi - John Tavares - William Nylander
Nick Robertson - Max Domi - Calle Järnkrok
Noah Gregor - David Kämpf - Ryan Reaves

Morgan Rielly - TJ Brodie
Mark Giordano - John Klingberg
William Lagesson - Simon Benoit

Joe Woll - assumed starter
Ilya Samsonov

The Game

One win against the Lightning can't change the past poor performance of the Leafs, but there were some hopeful signs in the energy and simple rush game played by Max Domi and Nick Robertson. The first good game from a bottom six line all season.

I was pleasantly surprised by Simon Benoit, who was hampered in training camp by an injury and never looked like a player of any ability. He's not going to do much but block shots and stay within three feet of the net/opposing blue line, but that's fine.

Speaking of fatigue, Woll can start tonight and one game of the upcoming back-to-back, but once the travel days off for the trip to Sweden are over, then either Samsonov has to be playable or a change has to happen.

That's a problem for another day, today's problem is beating the Sens, so Go Leafs Go!

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