Toronto Maple Leafs @ Columbus Blue Jackets
07:30 PM at Nationwide Arena
Watch on: NHLN, SN1, TVAS, FDSNOH

The Leafs last game was at home on October 28 against the Calgary Flames, which Toronto won by a score of 4-3 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 5-4-1 for a 0.550 Points %.

The Columbus Blue Jackets last played away on October 28 against the Buffalo Sabres. The Blue Jackets won by a score of 4-3 in overtime, and their current league record is 5-4-0 for a 0.556 Points %.

Them

The Blue Jackets are one of the best teams by Expected Goals at five-on-five this year. So far. They also have a Goals For % at five-on-five of 59, so they are winning those minutes big time.

Their power play is about average, but they aren't scoring as well there as they are at five-on-five. Their PK is the goalie with nothing much good going on in front of him.

And about those goalies. So far, both have been good to very good, with Jet Greaves having the slightly better numbers.

Which makes me ask... how'd they get that 5-4-0 record? In all-situations, the Goals For % drops to 51, and they've won a couple of games big and lost a couple of close ones. If they had a PK that worked, they'd be getting a lot more points. HockeyViz has them at 40% more Expected Goals allowed shorthanded than league average. That's really stanky. But their five-on-five offence is very good and is somewhat making up for it.

I'm sure someone will come along to call them a "dog shit" team the Leafs should dominate, but they aren't playing like one. At least not unless you draw a lot of penalties against them.

Greaves played vs Buffalo, so it's likely the Leafs see Elvis Merzlikins.

Lines

Dave Maetz via Daily Faceoff from their game in Buffalo – no lineup changes expected.

Dmitri Voronkov - Sean Monahan - Kirill Marchenko
Boone Jenner - Adam Fantilli - Kent Johnson
Cole Sillinger - Charlie Coyle - Mathieu Olivier
Miles Wood - Isac Lundestrom - Yegor Chinakhov

Zach Werenski - Denton Mateychuk
Ivan Provorov - Damon Severson
Dante Fabbro - Jake Christiansen

Elvis Merzlikins - confirmed starter
Jet Greaves

Us

The Leafs played a good game last night something to build off of. They aren't firing on all cylinders by any means, but they're getting some flow to their game.

They had a very large 1.87 Expected Goals at five-on-four against the Flames, so if they can keep that going, they can match a strength against the Columbus weakness.

Lines

Last game via Daily Faceoff

Note: the defence pairs were more or less as listed below, but Phil Myers and Simon Benoit had the least five-on-five minutes, so there was some adjusting in-game.

Bobby McMann - Auston Matthews - William Nylander
Matthew Knies - John Tavares - Matias Maccelli
Dakota Joshua - Nicolas Roy - Easton Cowan
Steven Lorentz - Max Domi - Nicholas Robertson

Simon Benoit - Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Brandon Carlo - Jake McCabe
Morgan Rielly - Philippe Myers

Cayden Primeau - starter
Anthony Stolarz

The Game

The Leafs are going on a real road trip with this game. Even though the next game isn't until Saturday, and they could come home in between, Craig Berube talked about the team spending some time together on the road.

This game can build off of the game last night, particularly if they do the things during the power play that succeeded. The defence is going to be challenged until Chris Tanev is back, but that's just how it is. No matter who is missing you still have to play it to win.

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