Tampa Bay Lightning @ Toronto Maple Leafs
07:00 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on: ESPN, CBC, TVAS, SN, BSSUN
After a game one that was a bit of a disaster, the Toronto Maple Leafs are looking for their first win of the series tonight.
Adam Seldo
Injuries, suspensions, ten goals scored, and a dozen penalties all in one game.
I love the playoffs.
Them
The Lightnings depth will be on display tonight with multiple players out of the game or a game time decision. Erik Cernak, Victor Hedman, Mikey Eyssimont are in that group tonight. Ian Cole and Tanner Jeannot are in according to Coach Jon Cooper but aren't at 100% yet. Former Maple Leaf Zach Bogosian should suit up on the bottom defense pair.
Lines
Chris Krenn via Daily Faceoff
Steven Stamkos - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel - Anthony Cirelli - Alex Killorn
Ross Colton - Nick Paul - Tanner Jeannot
Patrick Maroon - Pierre-Édouard Bellemare - Corey Perry
Victor Hedman* - Nicklaus Perbix
Mikhail Sergachev - Darren Raddysh
Ian Cole - Zach Bogosian
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Brian Elliott
The full team didn't skate this morning, so we don't have lines from there. Best guess is all we can do before warmup.
I am counting about 15 players on the ice for the #Bolts. It seems likely Jeannot, who is currently skating, will play tonight.
— Gabby Shirley (@Gabby_Shirley_) April 20, 2023
Hedman is here. He is a game time decision.
Eyssimont, who has already been ruled out for tonight, is skating too.
Us
Now that the Leafs have gotten the traditional first round suspension out of the way, they can tinker with the lines a bit, and it looks like they'll be spreading out of power by moving Ryan O'Rielly down to centre the third line, and Kerfoot-Tavares-Nylander is back as the second.
Matthew Knies was practicing like he's going to make his debut tonight, hopefully he can use that excitement and youthful energy to make that third line something Tampa has to worry about.
Lines
via David Alter, Leafs practice, 4/19
Calle Järnkrok - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Alex Kerfoot - John Tavares - William Nylander
Matthew Knies - Ryan O'Reilly - Noel Acciari
Zach Aston-Reese - David Kämpf - Sam Lafferty
Jake McCabe - TJ Brodie
Mark Giordano - Justin Holl
Morgan Rielly - Luke Schenn
Ilya Samsonov
Joseph Woll
Alter: Why the Leafs need to go back to Ilya Samsonov tonight
Cathy Squires
The Game
The Lightning don't need to change much about their game plan coming into tonight. Everything seemed to go pretty well on Tuesday night. They scored, drew penalties, everything went their way.
The Maple Leafs, however, need to come out of the gate hard and fast. They were too slow to match Tampa's speed on Tuesday and it cost them an early goal. Too many shots were from the perimeter as well, and they'll need to push harder to get into the dirty areas and mash the puck in.
Rush the puck, crash the net, and most importantly stay in control.
Game on is over, but this is a best of seven. No one picked either of these teams to sweep the series and losses were going to happen. The Leafs got one out of the way early, and while that gives Tampa the series advantage, as I said in the roundtable:
They'll win. It'll be six games, they'll lose games one and three making everyone panic. All games will be close. It's going to be stressful.
So far, I've been very correct, aside from that close games thing.
Game two.
Tonight.
Go Leafs Go.
