Carolina Hurricanes @ Toronto Maple Leafs
07:00 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on: NHLN, TVAS, SNO, FDSNSO

The Leafs last game was at home on March 17 against the New York Islanders, which Toronto lost by a score of 3-1 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 29-28-12 for a 0.507 Points %.

The Carolina Hurricanes last played at home on March 18 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Hurricanes won by a score of 6-5 in overtime, and their current league record is 43-19-6 for a 0.676 Points %.

St. Louis is the fifth to last team in the standings today with a Points % of 0.478. If they continue at that points rate, they will finish with 78 points. The Leafs have to finish with 77 points to take that spot in the standings, and they need to play at 0.269 the rest of the season to only get seven points out of the remaining 13 games. Their points pace since the Olympics is 0.291.

St. Louis hasn't moved in the standings, but the New York Rangers have managed to drop to third last behind Chicago. So now, 77 points only gets to fifth last.

Los Angeles is the second place team contesting for the two western wild card spots, putting them in a playoff position as of today. San Jose, Seattle and Nashville are tied for third with a Points % of 0.522, but the Sharks have a game in hand. If the Kings play at their current seasonal pace of 0.529, they will make the playoffs.

Nashville snuck back into this conversation with a win over Seattle, while the Kings collected a loser point to move up. The differences here are one point and two games played at most, so this still looks like it's going down to the wire.

Them

I've been thinking a lot about the truisms of hockey lately. Not those ones about faceoffs and board battles but the ones that a lot of you believe.

"If you hit a lot, it's because you don't have the puck. Hitting is bad, if you hit, you're bad, wanting players who hit is bad."

Here's what's interesting about that. This season there is no correlation (by eye, this is not deep analysis) between number of hits given at five-on-five and how much the team has the puck (Corsi %). Colorado is last, but Chicago is right there with them. Buffalo is near the bottom and Ottawa and Florida (good Corsi teams) are near the top. Carolina is 18th and they are, of course, the co-Corsi gods with the Avalanche.

Hits taken on the other hand, now there's something interesting. It very strongly correlates to team quality. Dallas and Carolina are one and two. From the bottom up is San Jose, Columbus, St. Louis, Anaheim and Toronto.

The overall percentage of hits given gets you to somewhat of a correlation with team strength and possession ability, but not nearly as close at hits taken on its own, and again, it's clear that correlation is coming from the taken side, not the given. All of this is available on the very far right of the Moneypuck Teams table.

What appears to be true (and should be visible watching games, frankly) is that there are many different styles of play and there isn't one perfect method to win games. It also appears that if you're good, you're going to get physical play used as a deterrent against you, and you better be able to cope with that in a way that allows you to succeed.

Carolina is very good at hockey in any situation. And they've been lucky this year with their goalies compared to recent tries at winning on the cheap. They are the most legit of the top teams.

Lines

Last Game (2026-03-18) via Daily Faceoff

Andrei Svechnikov - Sebastian Aho - Seth Jarvis
Taylor Hall - Logan Stankoven - Jackson Blake
Nikolaj Ehlers - Jordan Staal - Jordan Martinook
William Carrier - Mark Jankowski - Eric Robinson

Jaccob Slavin - Jalen Chatfield
K'Andre Miller - Sean Walker
Mike Reilly - Alexander Nikishin

Brandon Bussi - likely starter, but unconfirmed
Frederik Andersen

Us

Okay, it's been a few games now. Goggling over the roster being bad, so surprisingly bad when they've traded two centres, a middle-six winger and lost Auston Matthews is beating the skeleton of the dead horse. Possibly the fossil of the skeleton of the dead horse.

There are limits on recalls. The Leafs have 13 games left with one big road trip of notable length. They aren't going to call up a new set of players for every game.

Pezzetta is not playing today – there's a game in Ottawa tomorrow. Simon Benoit comes in for Phil Myers, actual pairings are not set at this time.

Bo Groulx is going to play out the season, even once the shine of his goal-scoring wears off and you start seeing why he's not in the NHL on the regular. Cheering for him is still fun, though.

Lines

Last Game (2026-03-17) via Daily Faceoff with Benoit in for Myers

Matias Maccelli - John Tavares - William Nylander
Matthew Knies - Max Domi - Easton Cowan
Dakota Joshua - Bo Groulx - Nicholas Robertson
Steven Lorentz - Jacob Quillan - Calle Järnkrok

Morgan Rielly - Simon Benoit
Jake McCabe - Brandon Carlo
Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Troy Stecher

Joe Woll - starter
Anthony Stolarz

The Game

I betcha the Hurricanes take a lot of hits tonight.

Game Coverage