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.
