Maple Leafs @ Red Wings: Preview & Game Day Chat

Maple Leafs vs. Penguins: Game # 60

Time: 7:00PM EDT

Location: Little Ceasar’s No Seriously There Are Lots Of People Here For Realsies! Arena, Detroit

Broadcast/Streaming: Sportsnet

Tonight, the Leafs look to rebound from a tough loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night. They take on the Detroit Red Wings on the second half of a back to back, in Detroit. The Wings might not be a great team this year but that’ll be tough for the Leafs. The good news is that the Red Wings also played last night with a 3-1 win on the road in Nashville, so they’ll be riding that high with farther to travel to get to Detroit.

The annoying part is this is the third time the Leafs are playing the Wings this year, and every time the Leafs are on the second half of a back to back. They won the first game, at home, 6-3 and lost the second game, in Detroit, 3-1. We’ll see if they have better luck this time.

The Leafs will likely have pretty much the exact same lineup, with the big question mark being how Zach Hyman after he took that dirty hit with a reaction that screamed “concussion!” Maybe Josh Leivo will actually get into a game? Or maybe Babs trolls us all and plays Matt Martin on Matthews’ wing! Only other change we might see is Carrick giving one of the other defense a rest as part of Babcock’s “rotation” of their third pairing guys.

Toronto Maple Leafs (just assuming Babcock doesn’t make any changes)

Forward Lines

Zach Hyman (questionable) - Auston Matthews - William Nylander

Patrick Marleau - Nazem Kadri - Mitch Marner

James van Riemsdyk - Tyler Bozak - Connor Brown

Leo Komarov - Dominic Moore - Kasperi Kapanen

Not Playing: Josh Leivo (maybe?), Matt Martin (I hope not!)

Defence Pairings

Morgan Rielly - Ron Hainsey

Jake Gardiner - Nikita Zaitsev

Travis Dermott - Connor Carrick

Not Playing: Roman Polak

Goaltenders

Starting: Curtis McElhinney

Backup: Frederik Andersen

Detroit Red Wings (from Left Wing Lock)

Forward Lines

Gustav Nyquist - Henrik Zetterberg - Anthony Mantha

Tomas Tatar - Dylan Larkin - Andreas Athanasiou

Darren Helm - Frans Nielsen - Justin Abdelkader

Tyler Bertuzzi - Future Leaf Luke Glendening - Martin Frk

Defence Pairings

Jonathan Ericsson - Trevor Daley

Niklas Kronwall - Luke Witkowski

Danny Dekeyser - Nick Jensen

Not playing: Mike Green

Goaltenders

Starting (not yet confirmed): Jimmy Howard

Backup: Petr Mrazek

ICYMI

Men’s Olympic qualifying round and quarterfinal schedule and matchups | by Katya

Six in Five: We all saw that streak coming | by Katya

Pyeongchang 2018: Switzerland shuts out Korea 2-0, Japan upsets Sweden 2-1 (OT) | by nafio

Toronto Maple Leafs lose 5-3 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a game where almost wasn’t good enough | by elseldo

GO LEAFS GO!

Who will replace Hyman if he’s kept out of this game?