The Toronto Maple Leafs are on a roll lately, playing great, fast pave games without giving up much space to their opponents. They rolled easily over the Seattle Kraken, battled evenly with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and tonight it’s the St. Louis Blues, someone who may be a team right between the styles and skill of the past two opponents.
TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS VS ST. LOUIS BLUES
7:00PM - SCOTIABANK ARENA
TV: SPORTSNET, CITY TV, WHATEVER THEY WATCH IN ST. LOUIS
OTHER GUYS: ST. LOUIS GAME TIME
The Leafs are 3-2 in their past five, but that’s a little deceiving. I don’t know why but they played so well the last two games I can’t believe they lost the way they did to Calgary way back then (3 games ago).
The Blues have only played four games since the All-Star Break, getting a nice vacation, and are 2-1-1 in that time. They lost 7-4 to New Jersey, beat Chicago and Ottawa easily, and then gave Martin St. Louis his first win as head coach of the Canadiens on Thursday in a 3-2 overtime loss.
Blues
The Blues are missing a big sniper as Vladimir Taresenko is out day to day with an injury suffered in Montréal. Aw shucks. They haven’t decided on which goalie to start tonight either, if it’s Binnington I can see that as he’s been their starter for a while and could be trade bait so he needs showing off. If it’s Husso, you go with the hot hand at the moment.
Brandon Saad - Ryan O’Reilly - David Perron
Pavel Buchnevich - Robert Thomas - Jordan Kyrou
Ivan Barbashev - Brayden Schenn - Oskar Sundqvist
Klim Kostin - Tyler Bozak - Logan Brown
Niko Mikkola - Colton Parayko
Torey Krug - Justin Faulk
Jake Walman - Robert Bortuzzo
Ville Husso
Jordan Binnington
So no Tarasenko, which is good! But there’s former Leaf Tyler Bozak centering the fourth line and that's bad since it’s the ex-Leaf curse.
Leafs
They’ve been playing amazing, Jack Campbell is back in his rhythm, and Matthews is climbing the Leafs record book with each game played.
Lines
Michael Bunting - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Alexander Kerfoot - John Tavares - William Nylander
Ilya Mikheyev - David Kämpf - Ondřej Kaše
Pierre Engvall - Jason Spezza - Wayne Simmonds
Morgan Rielly - TJ Brodie
Jake Muzzin - Timothy Liljegren
Rasmus Sandin - Justin Holl
Jack Campbell
Petr Mrázek
No one’s injured, Nick Ritchie is on the Marlies, everything’s coming up Milhouse!
A table
Preview Stats
| Toronto | Team | Tampa |
|---|---|---|
| 3-3 | Series | 3-3 |
| 23GF - 21GA - +2 | Goal Differential | 21GF - 23GA - -2 |
| 16% - 11th | Power Play | 22.6% - 7th |
| 77.4% - 10th | Penalty Kill | 84% - 6th |
| Auston Matthews - 4 | Most Goals | Colton, Palat - 3 |
| Mitch Marner - 5 | Most Assists | Nikita Kucherov - 6 |
| Auston Matthews - 8 | Most Points | Nikita Kucherov - 8 |
| Ilya Lyubushkin - 18 | Most PM | Jan Rutta - 17 |
| TJ Brodie - 22:44 | TOI Leader | Victor Hedman - 25:45 |
| Jack Campbell - .893sv% | Starting Goalie | Andrei Vasilevskiy - .885sv% |
The Leafs and Blues, basic numbers wise, look to be a pretty evenly matched team. I think tonight will be closer to the Penguins game than the Kraken, but we’ll see a Leafs victory anyway, even if it isn’t easy.
Go Leafs Go!
