Toronto Maple Leafs @ Utah Hockey Club
10:00 PM at Delta Center
Watch on: TVAS, SNO, Utah16

The Leafs last game was away on March 8 against the Colorado Avalanche, which Toronto lost by a score of 7-4 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 38-22-3 for a 0.627 Points %.

The Utah Hockey Club last played away on March 7 against the Chicago Blackhawks. The Hockey Club lost by a score of 4-3 in overtime, and their current league record is 28-25-10 for a 0.524 Points %.

Them

Utah had a very interesting deadline, one of the most interesting that flew under the radar, minus a few dumb jokes about the trade of Shea Weber's contract. That trade was part of their statement deadline moves that said more clearly than anything else that the Coyotes days are done.

Utah doesn't want dead contracts or massive LTIR space and they will extent their players instead of trading them. While everyone else was trading, they extended Karel Vejmelka, Alex Kerfoot, Ollie Maataa and Ian Cole.

Meanwhile, Utah is not in a playoff position. They can plausibly make a wild card spot if they get help by three other teams playing more poorly while they win more than they have been. It's not likely, but it could happen.

Choosing to go all in on the players they have now, while making space for some more additions in the summer is not what other teams in their almost but not quite range did. But they had to make it clear to their players and to their ticket buyers that they were a serious team not a debt farm.

Utah is very good at Corsi, less at Expected Goals by a small amount, and their goaltending is only average. They clearly need more talented shooters, and their power play is only okay, but they have the basics of a good team.

Lines

Last Game (2025-03-07) via Daily Faceoff

Clayton Keller - Logan Cooley - Nick Schmaltz
Alex Kerfoot - Barrett Hayton - Dylan Guenther
Lawson Crouse - Jack McBain - Josh Doan
Michael Carcone - Kevin Stenlund - Liam O'Brien

Mikhail Sergachev - John Marino
Olli Maatta - Sean Durzi
Ian Cole - Michael Kesselring

Karel Vejmelka - starter
Jaxson Stauber

Us

Chris Tanev is not ready to return per yesterday's practice. In addition:

Leafs players reportedly had a meeting to discuss their play of late. Which if you've missed some late nights and weird afternoon games amounts to: get massively outshot, play like the 2015 Leafs in your own end and scamper off to score some goals and hope for the best.

We'll see if this conversation and the recent practice have helped. They've got a nice homestand coming up where they need to get this sorted out.

Lines

David Alter via Daily Faceoff

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Bobby McMann - John Tavares - William Nylander
Pontus Holmberg - Scott Laughton - Max Domi
Steven Lorentz - David Kämpf - Calle Järnkrok

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

Joe Woll - starter
Anthony Stolarz

The Game

Well, it feels like this is the tenth time in the last month where the Leafs have played a "bad" team that is actually good at all the things the Leafs are bad at.

Surprise us, guys, shoot the puck more than three times in the first ten minutes.

Game Coverage