Toronto Maple Leafs @ San Jose Sharks
10:30 PM at SAP Center at San Jose
Watch on: NBCSCA, SNO
Opponent’s Site: Fear The Fin
The Leafs last game was an away game on October 24 against the Vegas Golden Knights, which the Leafs lost by a score of 3-1. The Leafs have a record of 4-3-0 so far.
The San Jose Sharks last played at home on October 25 against the Vegas Golden Knights. The Sharks lost by a score of 4-2, and their current league record is 2-7-0.
Them
Fresh off a two goal loss to the Golden Knights, the San Jose Shark welcome the Buds to town tonight. The headline of tonight’s preview from our friends at Fear the Fin states “Auston Matthews poised for breakout” and we couldn’t hope for more. Thanks Erika!
The Sharks are in overhaul mode this season with most outlets placing them in the bottom quarter of the league in pre-season rankings. So far it doesn’t look like their play has given much reason to dispute that. I make this claim solely based on their record as I only plan on watching two Sharks games this year.
Erik Karlsson is around. Y’all should remember him from his Ottawa days? Logan Couture is still the leader of this team following Pat, Joe, & Joe. Former Leaf Alex Barabanov is making $2.5MM on their second line. Apparently he put up a nice season last year with 10 goals and 39 pts in 70 games.
Brent Burns is gone. He seems like a fun dude. And his “First Day of Class” collection of pictures is outstanding, but he’s in Carolina now so...
The Sharks have a pair of prospects who could probably help out. You could go as far to say there are those chomping at the bit to bring them up, but alas, Mike Grier is smarter than that. Best to let the prospects overdevelop is the line they are working with at the moment. It won’t do much to help the results this season, but that may be the point. I also won’t argue the logic that overdevelopment is far less harmful to prospects than underdevelopment.
This team needs a win to feel good about itself and will be looking to build off of what they used to have success early in their last game.
Lines
Source: Sheng Peng via Daily Faceoff
Timo Meier - Tomas Hertl - Evgeny Svechnikov
Matthew Nieto - Logan Couture - Alexander Barabanov
Oskar Lindblom - Nico Sturm - Luke Kunin
Noah Gregor - Steven Lorentz - Kevin Labanc
Jaycob Megna - Erik Karlsson
Marc-Edouard Vlasic - Matt Benning
Mario Ferraro - Radim Simek
Kahkonen
Reimer
Us
Fresh off a two goal loss to the Golden Knights, the San Jose Sharks welcome the Buds to town tonight. Sound familiar?
The Leafs will try out some new lines tonight, moving smaller pieces around the line-up in attempts to spark some offense. Third string goalie Erik Kallgren will get the call for his second start in the first eight games of the season. I’m not ready to rule on the topic, so we will keep the goaltending conversation to the side for now. It hasn’t been bad enough to draw eye/ire of the media.
The offense is the focus and really the only reason for that is no one has the gall nor stupidity to call out Auston Matthews and make a scene. If Matthews wasn’t slumping then maybe Marner would be a scapegoat, but the top line just hasn’t had results. Most jacked Leaf (from something I read or heard that I can’t find right now; I’ll link if I find it or someone comments) and five-on-five goal leader (2), David Kämpf, may need to pull this team forward out of the mud so the performance tires can catch some traction.
Lines
Alex Kerfoot - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Nick Robertson - John Tavares - William Nylander
Michael Bunting - Calle Järnkrok - Denis Malgin
Zach Aston-Reese - David Kämpf - Pierre Engvall
Morgan Rielly - TJ Brodie
Rasmus Sandin - Justin Holl
Mark Giordano - Victor Mete
Källgren
Samsonov
The Game
Toronto vs San Jose
| Toronto | Stat | San Jose |
|---|---|---|
| 57.1 - 17th | Points % - Ranking | 22.2 - 30th |
| 2.714 - 25th | Goals/Game - Ranking | 1.889 - 32nd |
| 2.571 - 6th | Goals Against/Game - Ranking | 3 - 20th |
| 22.2 - 15th | Power Play% - Ranking | 7.4 - 28th |
| 80.8 - 14th | Penalty Kill% - Ranking | 96.2 - 3rd |
| 8.4 - 27th | Team Sh% - Ranking | 7 - 32nd |
| 0.904 - 16th | Team Sv% - Ranking | 0.902 - 18th |
| William Nylander - 4 | Most Goals (NST) | Nico Sturm - 4 |
| John Tavares - 8 | Most Points (NST) | Erik Karlsson - 6 |
| Morgan Rielly - 7 | Most PIM (NST) | Matthew Benning, Luke Kunin - 10 |
| Mitchell Marner - 22.99 | TOI Leader (NST) | Erik Karlsson - 23.8 |
This game feels like the moment last year in Chicago after a slow start to the season. The record isn’t as bad, but the feel is comparable to me. Don’t be surprised if the Leafs are down two goals after two periods and some vet, Gio this year, gives a speech between periods to spurn the comeback.
This is becoming less preview and more random prediction, so I’ll leave it there. Don’t forget your pre-game naps.