Toronto Maple Leafs @ Seattle Kraken
10:00 PM at Climate Pledge Arena
Watch on: SNO, Prime Video, KING, KONG

In this case, Prime refers to regional coverage of the Kraken. I assume this will be geoblocked to the Seattle area in some way. King and Kong are (I think) two separate IPTV type channels. SNO means this game is only on in the Ontario region on television, but should be on SN+ for subscribers anywhere.

All viewing options are now so complex that I need some error bars on every statement in the above, but it's true as far as I know.

The Leafs last game was away on October 26 against the Calgary Flames, which Toronto lost by a score of 5-2 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 7-5-2 for a 0.571 Points %.

The Seattle Kraken last played at home on October 24 against the Minnesota Wild. The Kraken lost by a score of 5-1 in regulation, and their current league record is 7-4-1 for a 0.625 Points %.

Them

The Kraken were in such disarray last year they hired a firm to audit their operations in an effort to fix things. They did... nothing very obvious after that as they'd already moved on to a new GM. Since they have a good record so far, Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hockey says whatever they did was correct.

So far this season the Kraken have been a very poor team at five-on-five, meaningfully worse than the Leafs and the Jets who are hovering at the bottom of the muddy middle trying to get to average.

They have an average power play and score at an average pace. They have allowed the second worst pace of Expected Goals against – they are now where the Leafs were after a few games. The Leafs have fixed their problems, so there is hope for the Kraken.

In all-situations, their goaltending has been average. Grubauer has been good, Daccord has not.

Lines

@CirclingSports via Daily Faceoff from a recent practice

Bobby McMann - Matty Beniers - Jordan Eberle
Jani Nyman - Chandler Stephenson - Mackie Samoskevich
Kaapo Kakko - Berkly Catton - Shane Wright
Ben Meyers - Frederick Gaudreau - Ryan Winterton

Vince Dunn - Adam Larsson
Ryker Evans - Brandon Montour
Joshua Mahura - Cale Fleury

Philipp Grubauer - projected starter
Joey Daccord

Us

So very much complaining has been going on about Sergei Bobrovsky, and the first article has appeared with the word "worry" in the headline. But the results of the two Leafs goalies are very similar. For goalies with at least five games played, they are 20th and 21st out of 47 using Moneypuck's rated GSAX.

Also, it has been reported that Chris Tanev has changed out of his red no-contact practice jersey. And to note again, Joshua is still on LTIR.

Lines

Morning Skate:

Gavin McKenna - Auston Matthews - Jack Roslovic
Easton Cowan - Nick Paul - William Nylander
Bo Groulx - Colton Sissons - Vinni Lettieri
Brandon Duhaime - Teddy Blueger - Zack MacEwen

Jake McCabe - Darren Raddysh
Morgan Rielly - Troy Stecher
Dakota Mermis - Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Sergei Bobrovsky - likely starter
Anthony Stolarz

The Game

Try not to get hurt.

Game Coverage