Toronto Maple Leafs @ Winnipeg Jets:

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Location: It’s near that lake that’s named after Jonathan Toews.

Broadcast/Streaming: Sporstnet 360, SN 1, TVAS, NBCSN

Opponent SBNation Site: Arctic Ice Hockey

The Toronto Maple Leafs will travel to an arena in order to face off against the Winnipeg Jets. Coming off last game, it’s all the more important for the Leafs to put in a good showing and try to build some winning momentum — but we know the Jets will be saying the same.

The Leafs lost two in a row last week, so the sky has already fallen, and there’s blue and white everywhere. Now, no matter what happens, things can only get better, but not less blue.

Maple Leafs

lines from yesterday

Forward Lines

Patrick Marleau - Auston Matthews - Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Hyman - John Tavares - Mitch Marner
Par Lindholm - Nazem Kadri - Connor Brown
Tyler Ennis/Andreas Johnsson - Frederik Gauthier - Josh Leivo

Defence Pairings

Morgan Rielly - Ron Hainsey
Jake Gardiner - Nikita Zaitsev
Travis Dermott - Igor Ozhiganov

Goaltenders

Frederik Andersen
Garret Sparks

Winnipeg Jets

lines from today’s optional skate plus last practice

Forward Lines

Patrik Laine - Mark Scheifele - Nic Petan/Blake Wheeler
Kyle Connor - Bryan Little - Nikolaj Ehlers
Andrew Copp - Adam Lowry - Brandon Tanev
Brendan Lemieux - Jack Roslovic - Mathieu Perreault

Defence Pairings

Josh Morrissey - Jake Trouba
Ben Chiarot - Dustin Byfuglien
Dmitry Kulikov - Tyler Myers

Goaltenders

Connor Hellebuyck - starter
Laurent Brossoit

After a brief flirtation with the idea of playing a third pairing of Martin Marincin and Igor Ozhiganov — also known as that day Mike Babcock trolled everyone — the defensive pairs are as they are, and the forward lines will be locked up until William Nylander joins the team.

The Jets, who used to be one of the best five-on-five teams in the NHL but who struggled on the power play, have flipped the script, and they are now mediocre in both areas by shot share, however the power play is enjoying a success not really warranted by the shot rate. Might be that Laine guy and his shot of doom.

They are putting up points mostly by just barely oustcoring the weaknesses, which in their case is too little offensive pace and too many shots against. If their goaltending hadn’t been hot for them so far, they’d be in trouble.

The Leafs, meanwhile, are simply combining bad defence and some bad goaltending all at once to test our nerve.

One thing we know, there will be a lot of shots and a team in blue and white will win this.

Forget those lines, have these lines:

No, I don’t know what absent means. We’ll update you when we do know.

Now we know.

Game Coverage