Washington Capitals @ Toronto Maple Leafs
07:00 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on: SN, NHLN, CBC, MNMT2

The Leafs last game was yesterday against the Detroit Red Wings, which Toronto won by a score of 5-2 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 22-12-2 for a 0.639 Points %.

The Washington Capitals last played away on December 23 against the Boston Bruins. The Capitals lost by a score of 4-1 in regulation, and their current league record is 23-9-2 for a 0.706 Points %.

Them

They are much more rested than the Leafs, that's clear. Lines below are a projection from practice yesterday where both Alex Ovechkin and Lars Eller looked to be ready to return.

The last time Toronto played the Capitals, in mid-November, it was a Matthews-free game, and also the first game where the Leafs tried out Jani Hakanpää and pretended he was on the top pair. Steven Lorentz scored a goal that was called back. Everyone who wants the situation room to call the game by the way the rules should be was upset. So was everyone else.

The Leafs played very poorly and dull for two periods, woke up, tied the game, and John Tavares skated as fast as he has in ten years to win it overtime.

At that time the Capitals had the hottest offence in the NHL, putting up the kinds of numbers the Leafs used to have. Unsurprisingly, the Hurricanes have overtaken them by Expected Goals rate, but the Capitals are still second. They have an excellent five-on-five game, excellent goaltending, and are second in the NHL in Shooting %.

Their power play is very good by Expected Goals, but they aren't quite getting the goals you'd expect. I expect that will change soon.

In every metric you can think of, they are better than the Leafs, save the .002 difference in their all-situations Save %. Must be the tax rate in DC allowing them to be so good.

Lines

Sammi Silber

Alex Ovechkin - Dylan Strome - Aliaksei Protas
Connor McMichael - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Tom Wilson
Andrew Mangiapane - Lars Eller - Jakub Vrana
Brandon Duhaime - Nic Dowd - Taylor Raddysh

Rasmus Sandin - John Carlson
Martin Fehervary - Matt Roy
Jakob Chychrun - Trevor van Riemsdyk

Logan Thompson - confirmed starter
Charlie Lindgren

Us

I wasn't sure watching it and I'm not sure now, if the Leafs played a smart game against Detroit or if just any style of play would have beat the Red Wings. The game changed a lot in the last 10 minutes when the Red Wings realized they actually do have to play out the whole rest of this season and it was the coach fired, not them.

I'd say the Leafs can't take whole periods off, but they do seem to keep getting away with it. The Leafs are now 16th in Expected Goals Against rate, right in the same ballpark as the Capitals and about 10 other teams at about average for the league. They really can't defend their way to glory even if their defence is now much more solid and reliable. They have to shoot their way to success.

Moneypuck

This looks like things are a little better lately, but that is mostly driven by the annihilation of Buffalo and the hot game against the Ducks. To be clear, Toronto is not bad by this measure, they're just bland with their bland offence a tiny bit better than their bland defence. The power play makes them better overall, and goaltending is absolutely necessary to win.

Lines

From yesterday and subject to change. No Auston Matthews, though.

Max Pacioretty - John Tavares - Mitch Marner
Matthew Knies - Pontus Holmberg - William Nylander
Bobby McMann - Max Domi - Nicholas Robertson
Steven Lorentz - David Kämpf - Connor Dewar

Morgan Rielly - Philippe Myers
Jake McCabe - Chris Tanev
Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Simon Benoit

Matt Murray - confirmed starter
Joe Woll

The Game

"Play the whole game" seems like one way to try to win against Washington, even if the other method did work once.

Game Coverage