Gameday: Playing the worst team in the league? Prepare for a tough game

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Montréal Canadiens
7:00PM - Scotiabank Arena
CBC, Sportsnet, TVA Sports
Other Guys: Eyes on the Prize

The Toronto Maple Leafs have returned from their road trip, winning three of four games, and taking seven of eight points against some of the tougher teams in the league (and the Flyers) scoring between four and seven goals per game. Prepare for all that to end tonight.

That’s right, tonight’s opponent, the Montréal Canadiens, are in a race with the Arizona Coyotes for the bottom of the standings and that means the Leafs will do poorly. Let’s look at some of the results against the bottom of the league:

March 26th vs Canadiens: Loss 4-2
March 13th vs Sabres: Loss 5-2
March 10th vs Coyotes: Loss 5-4 (OT)
March 2nd vs Sabres: Loss 5-1
February 21st vs Canadiens: Loss 5-2

This does not inspire confidence.

Them

They’re bad. Recently not as bad, 2-3 with wins over the Lightning and Devils. Okay the Devils’ win isn’t impressive, but come on, Tampa. Figure it out. Anyway, the Habs are bad and no one cares about them.

Lines

Cole Caufield - Nick Suzuki - Rem Pitlick
Mike Hoffman - Jake Evans - Josh Anderson
Joel Armia - Christian Dvorak - Brendan Gallagher
Michael Pezzetta - Ryan Poehling - Tyler Pitlick

Joel Edmundson - Alexander Romanov
Jordan Harris - David Savard
Corey Schueneman - Chris Wideman

Jake Allen
Samuel Montembault

Injuries: Carey Price, Shea Weber, Jonathan Drouin, Jeff Petry — might be in.

No former Leafs because they’re too smart to play for the Habs.

I really have no idea who 90% of these guys are. Tank away Habs.

Us

It’s the Maple Leafs, they’re awesome.
Auston Matthews is looking to score 50 in 50 tonight.
The team is going to work to get him 70 goals this season.
They’ll figure out how to beat the Canadiens, finally.
We just need to believe.

Lines

Michael Bunting - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Ilya Mikheyev - John Tavares - Alexander Kerfoot
William Nylander - David Kämpf - Pierre Engvall
Wayne Simmonds - Colin Blackwell - Jason Spezza

Morgan Rielly - Ilya Lyubushkin
Jake Muzzin - TJ Brodie
Mark Giordano - Justin Holl

Erik Källgren (confirmed starter)
Jack Campbell

Injuries: Rasmus Sandin, Ondřej Kaše, Petr Mrázek

And that table of stuff I always promise you:

Preview Stats

They’re real bad. The Leafs should win, but who knows.

I do! They won’t.

Have a great time watching!