Toronto Maple Leafs @ Nashville Predators
07:00 PM at Bridgestone Arena
Watch on: SN, CBC, FDSNSO

The Leafs last game was away on March 20 against the New York Rangers, which Toronto won by a score of 4-3 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 42-24-3 for a 0.630 Points %.

The Nashville Predators last played at home on March 20 against the Anaheim Ducks. The Predators lost by a score of 4-1 in regulation, and their current league record is 25-35-8 for a 0.426 Points %.

Them

Maybe lost 4-1 to the Ducks is enough of a writeup on this team.

They came out of the gate this season and just fell flat.

From Hockey Reference

They've been down more than they've been up since.

They have a basic five-on-five game that gets them a 51% Corsi and Expected Goals. This is a theme of this season, that the middling teams who are all a touch better at puck possession than the Leafs seem to be largely teams out of the playoffs or barely clinging on. They are teams with multiple weaknesses outside of that key area of strength.

Nashville has not been eliminated yet, but they are the next team to go in the west. They have the worst Shooting % in all-situations and dreadful goaltending results giving them a -49 goal differential.

Steven Stamkos is the bellwether player on this team. He has a Shooting % in his normal range at 16%, but he only has 23 goals because his shot rate has cratered. Filip Forsberg leads the team with 25.

There's 56 goalies in the NHL right now with 20 games played. The Predators goalies are 42 and 46 on that list by Goals Saved over Expected per 60 minutes. Handy they have the same nickname, since they've been interchangeably a drag on the team.

I have, genuinely, heard of one of their defencemen.

Lines

Lines from Nick Kieser.

Filip Forsberg - Ryan O'Reilly - Luke Evangelista
Michael Bunting - Steven Stamkos - Jonathan Marchessault
Cole Smith - Fedor Svechkov - Jakub Vrana
Zachary L'Heureux - Michael McCarron - Colton Sissons

Brady Skjei - Nick Blankenburg
Marc Del Gaizo - Justin Barron
Spencer Stastney - Andreas Englund

Juuse Saros - starter
Justus Annunen

Us

It looks like an identical lineup goes tonight as last time, so Calle Järnkrok sits out against his old team.

Lines

Last Game (2025-03-20) via Daily Faceoff and the same as today's morning skate.

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Bobby McMann - John Tavares - William Nylander
Pontus Holmberg - Max Domi - Nicholas Robertson
Scott Laughton - David Kämpf - Steven Lorentz

Morgan Rielly - Brandon Carlo
Jake McCabe - Chris Tanev
Simon Benoit - Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Anthony Stolarz
Joe Woll - starter

The Game

They can control the puck, and they're trying that spread out the scoring thing with completely different lines to last game. Don't take them lightly.

Also, this is one of those next-gen games, so one assumes those black jerseys are on the menu. This would be cool if the Preds were in mustard, but instead they'll be in while and it will just be the Leafs in a funny colour.

Game Coverage