Toronto Maple Leafs @ Montréal Canadiens
07:00 PM at Centre Bell
Watch on: SN, RDS

The Leafs last game was at home on March 7 against the Tampa Bay Lightning, which Toronto lost by a score of 5-2 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 27-26-11 for a 0.508 Points %.

The Montréal Canadiens last played away on March 7 against the Los Angeles Kings. The Canadiens won by a score of 4-3 in regulation, and their current league record is 34-18-10 for a 0.629 Points %.

St. Louis is the fifth to last team in the standings with a Points % of 0.468. If they continue at that points rate, they will finish with 77 points (rounded up). The Leafs have to finish with 76 points to take that spot in the standings (gosh no, I'm not going to look at tiebreakers, this is silly enough). The Leafs need to play at 0.306 the rest of the season to only get 11 points out of the remaining 18 games.

Los Angeles is the fourth place team contesting for the two western wild card spots. San Jose holds the second spot with a Points % of 0.541 which would give them 89 points (rounding up) if they maintain that pace. For Los Angeles to get 90 points and take that spot, giving Toronto a second-round pick, they have to play 0.632 the rest of the season. They are at 0.524.

Them

The Habs are playing at 0.629 and have a less than strong a hold on a wild card spot.

They are a low end 50/50 club team with a Corsi and Expected Goals of 49% and 48%. They score over expected and have slightly above average goaltending overall. They beat the Kings in their last game by being heavily outshot and riding the goalie while they scored late in a close game. Yes that is rather like the Leafs of last year.

Lines

Pat Guillet via Daily Faceoff from yesterday.

Cole Caufield - Nick Suzuki - Juraj Slafkovsky
Alex Newhook - Oliver Kapanen - Ivan Demidov
Kirby Dach - Jake Evans - Zack Bolduc
Josh Anderson - Phillip Danault - Brendan Gallagher

Kaiden Guhle - Lane Hutson
Noah Dobson - Mike Matheson
Arber Xhekaj - Alexandre Carrier

Jakub Dobes - confirmed starter
Sam Montembeault

Us

New lines were put together yesterday at practice. Craig Berube lasted about as long as he ever does playing Max Domi at centre, so Domi's now back riding with Matthews and Knies.

Jacob Quillan showed up very well in his first game of the final run of the season. It seems likely he'll play every one barring injury. Making his debut against Tampa was not easing into things, but he's very tough and plays as hard as he can.

He played the fourth-line centre role with only 6:25 at five-on-five. He faced Oliver Bjorkstrand, Zemgus Girgensons, Brayden Point, Jake Guentzel and Yanni Gourde for at least two minutes each. He saw the Tampa fourth line a lot less. His line, with Calle Järnkrok and Steven Lorentz was heavily outshot and produced almost no offence.

Quillan also played as the fourth-used forward on the PK where he looked very able. Expect that to continue over the next few weeks.

If the practice lines hold, he'll be playing with Nick Robertson and Easton Cowan, who were two and three behind Auston Matthews at individual offence last game. They were also two and three in five-on-five ice time behind Matthews as well, although all were nominally on different lines.

The Marlies were in Winnipeg for two days over the weekend, and they didn't leave anyone other than Quillan behind when they left, so the extra forward addition waited for today:

Groulx has some NHL experience in the past and he practiced with the team over the Olympic break. He may or may not draw in tonight.

Lines

Mark Masters via Daily Faceoff from yesterday's practice:

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

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

Anthony Stolarz
Joe Woll - presumed starter

The Game

The Leafs played pretty well against Tampa considering the circumstances. The goal here is for the team to provide an environment where Easton Cowan gets to just play games in a routine, and where they can decide if Jacob Quillan is really a player they can consider on the roster full time. Bo Groulx is a long shot to make a meaningful impact, but there's nothing wrong with giving him some games.

The rest is just going through the motions.

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