Tampa Bay Lightning @ Toronto Maple Leafs
07:30 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on: NHLN, Prime, TVAS, The Spot

The Leafs last game was at home on December 6 against the Montréal Canadiens, which Toronto lost by a score of 2-1 in a shootout. The Leafs have a record of 13-11-4 for a 0.536 Points %.

The Tampa Bay Lightning last played at home on December 6 against the New York Islanders. The Lightning lost by a score of 2-0 in regulation, and their current league record is 16-10-2 for a 0.607 Points %.

Them

The Lightning lead the Atlantic division with a Points % that would be third in the Metro. It's not just that the Eastern Conference is tightly packed, it's also that the only two teams with top tier records are in the Metro, making the Atlantic "fun" to navigate.

Toronto is four points behind Tampa.

Are the Lightning good, in decline, some of both? Well, their story is one of injuries, like most other teams this year.

Andrei Vasilevskiy is on IR as of this morning with an undisclosed injury. And a long list of other players are out with undisclosed injuries. Victor Hedman just returned to play in their last game and is playing in the bottom four.

Nikita Kucherov (undisclosed) did not play in that game, but isn't seriously hurt, per reports and will play today. Brayden Point appears to be returning to play. Curtis Douglas and Dominic James left the last game injured and aren't playing.

The Lightning are excellent at five-on-five, have a mediocre power play that is failing to score at Leafs levels of bad, have a mediocre PK that has a tiny goals against rate and a top 10 Save % in all situations.

That goaltending has been mostly Vasilevskiy, unsurprisingly. But it is surprising that Jonas Johansson has been average in 10 games played.

Lines

Projected Lines from Dave Mishkin

Jake Guentzel - Brayden Point - Nick Paul
Brandon Hagel - Anthony Cirelli - Nikita Kucherov
Pontus Holmberg - Yanni Gourde - Zemgus Girgensons
Gage Goncalves - Jack Finley - Oliver Bjorkstrand

J.J. Moser - Darren Raddysh
Charle-Edouard D'Astous - Emil Lilleberg
Victor Hedman - Maxwell Crozier

Jonas Johansson - presumed starter
Brandon Halverson

Us

The Leafs made some substitutions today, and there's stories about who was or was not playing well, but it's rotation of the extras, no matter the explanation.

Lines

David Alter via Daily Faceoff

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Max Domi
Easton Cowan - John Tavares - William Nylander
Dakota Joshua - Nicolas Roy - Bobby McMann
Steven Lorentz - Scott Laughton - Calle Järnkrok

Morgan Rielly - Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Jake McCabe - Troy Stecher
Simon Benoit - Dakota Mermis

Dennis Hildeby - starter
Artur Akhtyamov

The Game

There's only one game the Leafs can play. Every game has to be a serious attempt to play their best. End of story.

Tampa is putting a weakened lineup out there, take advantage of it.

Game Coverage