Detroit Red Wings @ Toronto Maple Leafs
07:30 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on: TVAS, SNO, BSDET

The Leafs last game was at home yesterday against the Colorado Avalanche, which Toronto lost by a score of 5-3 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 21-11-8 for a 0.625 Points %.

The Detroit Red Wings last played at home yesterday against the Los Angeles Kings. The Red Wings won by a score of 5-3 in regulation, and their current league record is 21-16-5 for a 0.560 Points %.

Them

The Red Wings are in bubble territory in the Eastern Conference, but that is at least as down to the play of the Tampa Bay Lightning (lousy) as it is their own. By Points %, they are actually ahead of the Lightning but fifth in the wild card standings.

Like the Pittsburgh Penguins, they have a positive goal differential that they haven't converted on for points.

The last time theses two teams met was game 16, and anything we could know about the Wings then was not very reliable. Now it's possible to say that they are a very poor five-on-five team who don't have the puck much.

They mitigate that with some better defending than you might expect and an average team-goalie-performance. Their power play is okay, their penalty kill is awful, but the goalies help shorthanded a little.

If you imagine the big bulgy pack of mediocre teams, Detroit is on the bottom of the pile, and it won't take much to push them into lottery territory.

Moritz Seider is a legitimately excellent young defender, and then they have some guys. But team defence is better than the sum of the parts.

Oh, and they signed Patrick Kane. I don't hear about him incessantly anymore so I assume he has been bad, let me check... His offence has dried up to marginal third-liner level, but he seems to be having the only season in his entire career with positive defensive impacts. Even adjusted for teammates. I am... going to have to see that to believe it isn't some random blip.

Lines

Ansar Khan via Daily Faceoff - last game's lines

David Perron - Dylan Larkin - Lucas Raymond
Alex DeBrincat - J.T. Compher - Patrick Kane
Michael Rasmussen - Andrew Copp - Christian Fischer
Robby Fabbri - Joe Veleno - Daniel Sprong

Shayne Gostisbehere - Moritz Seider
Ben Chiarot - Jeff Petry
Olli Määttä - Justin Holl

Alex Lyon
James Reimer - confirmed starter

Us

Leafs. Pffft. That's what I think of them today.

The mystery starter has been revealed and it is, duh, duh, duh, Ilya Samsonov.

Lines

If we assume from that information above, something like:

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Tyler Bertuzzi - John Tavares - William Nylander
Pontus Holmberg - Max Domi - Calle Järnkrok
Bobby McMann - David Kämpf - Noah Gregor

Morgan Rielly - T.J. Brodie
Simon Benoit - Jake McCabe
Connor Timmins - Timothy Liljegren

Robertson could come in for Holmberg, McMann or Gregor.

Ilya Samsonov - confirmed starter
Martin Jones

The Game

For once the Leafs are not facing a road team all angry because they just lost to the Habs or something. The Leafs get to be the angry team. Or is that just a lot of us?

UPDATE: Gametime is now 7:30 pm.

Game Coverage