Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Boston Bruins: Game 17

Time: 7:00 PM

Location: TD Garden

Broadcast/Streaming: CBC

Opponent SBNation Site: Stanley Cup of Chowdah

Fresh off crushing the New Jersey Devils 6-1, the Leafs journey to Boston to face one of their old rivals: the Bruins.

Despite missing Auston Matthews and William Nylander, the Leafs have been pretty successful lately.  Turns out having John Tavares on your team helps, if you have people to play with him.  What a time to be alive.

Maple Leafs

Forward Lines

Zach Hyman - John Tavares - Mitch Marner

Patrick Marleau - Nazem Kadri - Kasperi Kapanen

Andreas Johnsson - Par Lindholm - Connor Brown

Tyler Ennis - Frederik Gauthier - Josh Leivo

Defence Pairings

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

Goaltenders
Garret Sparks -starter

Frederik Andersen

After a tough start to the season, Andreas Johnsson got his first goal of the year last night, coming off a stretch of improved play.  Hopefully he can continue to shine.  In other news, Morgan Rielly has a patently absurd 20 points this year and will absolutely get Norris votes if he keeps this up, because points ultimately get you the Norris.  Whee!

Boston Bruins

Forward Lines

Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - David Pastrnak

Joakim Nordstrom - David Krejci - Jake Debrusk

Danton Henein - David Backes - Anders Bjork

Chris Wagner - Sean Kuraly - Noel Acciari

Defence Pairings

Zdeno Chara - Brandon Carlo

Torey Krug - John Moore

Matt Grzelcyk - Steve Kampfer

Goaltenders

Jaroslav Halak

Dan Vladar

You probably know the Bruins so well you’re sick of them.  They still have (for my money) the deadliest top line in hockey, they’re still trotting out Zdeno Chara like some sort of immortal interference monster, they’re still a bit iffy on depth scoring despite a couple of good middle six Cs.  Tuukka Rask is away on a personal matter so the Leafs will be facing old Jaro Halak, who has unfortunately been lights out this season.  Oh well.

The Leafs, somewhat miraculously, still have a quite impressive forward core despite being down two of their deadliest weapons, and ultimately they’re going to need them.  Boston is now as ever probably our most immediate threat, and it would be nice to beat them for the standings points we’ll want at the end of the year. Also it would be nice to beat them because honestly, fuck the Bruins.

Go Leafs Go.

Game Coverage