Two really good lines. That is our job as coaches, with the Matthews line and the Tavares-Nylander line. They\u2019re both dangerous. They both can make a lot of plays, and they\u2019re very dynamic off the rush. That is where we have to focus our play \u2014 not allowing that to happen.<\/p>\n
Zettler on the absence of head coach Jon Cooper, who is attending to personal matters after the loss of his father:\u00a0<\/p>\n
I spoke to him last night about a lot of personal stuff. Our thoughts and prayers are with Coop and his family. That is the number one thing \u2014 that he takes care of business back home. He left this morning for Vancouver.<\/p>\n
I am confident in our guys. They\u2019ve been excellent in so many ways this year, including at times like this when Coop is missing, or something happens to one of the guys. We\u2019ve had guys step up all year, whether people are missing through injury or personal reasons. They\u2019ve really done an excellent job of responding.<\/p>\n
I expect nothing less. They expect nothing less of themselves.<\/p>\n
Coop is a huge, huge part of this. He leads the way for us in so many ways. We want to make sure we have a good showing for him.<\/p>\n
Zettler on the message to his players coming off a long break:\u00a0<\/p>\n
The one thing we talked about, after congratulating all of the Olympians for an unbelievable tournament, was puck management. We\u2019re playing a good team in Toronto, a division team. We haven\u2019t played a ton of division games, so these ones are critical.<\/p>\n
We had a really good run into the Olympic break. We just didn\u2019t get a ton of separation from the teams in our division. These are chances for us. We have Toronto tonight, and Buffalo in a couple of nights. These are chances for us to get a little more separation.<\/p>\n
Puck management will be a big part of it, especially when you haven\u2019t played in two weeks. We didn\u2019t give up a lot of chances, knock on wood, going into tonight, but our success has come from breaking the puck out and managing the puck coming out of our end. We\u2019ve done a really good job of it over the past couple of months. Hopefully, the trend continues after two weeks off.<\/p>\n
Zettler on the expectations for the Olympic participants in the first game back:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Initially, they\u2019ll probably be the best players on the ice, I would think. The bulk of both teams have been watching on the couch and practicing, but ultimately, practices are not like games.<\/p>\n
The [Olympians] have been playing at a high level for a couple of weeks now. Generally speaking, they are the best guys on the ice already, but I would guess their execution is going to be at a level higher than the guys who haven\u2019t been playing.<\/p>\n
Maple Leafs (27-21-9) vs. Lightning (37-14-4): Head-to-Head Stats <\/p>\n
via NaturalStatTrick.com<\/a> & AdvancedHockeyStats.com<\/a><\/p>\n Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines <\/p>\n Forwards Defensemen Goaltenders Extras: Dakota Joshua, Easton Cowan, Philippe Myers Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines <\/p>\n Forwards Defensemen Goaltenders Injured\/Out: Anthony Cirelli, Nick Paul, Max Crozier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs hockey is back with a big test and a massive two points on the line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-169805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n
#74 Bobby McMann\u00a0\u2013 #34 Auston Matthews \u2013 #11 Max Domi
#63 Matias Maccelli \u2013 #91 John Tavares \u2013 #88 William Nylander
#23 Matthew Knies \u2013 #55 Nic Roy \u2013 #89 Nick Robertson
#18 Steven Lorentz \u2013 #24 Scott Laughton \u2013 #19 Calle Jarnkrok<\/p>\n
#44 Morgan Rielly \u2013 #25 Brandon Carlo
#22 Jake McCabe \u2013\u00a0#95 Oliver Ekman-Larsson
#2 Simon Benoit \u2013 #28 Troy Stecher<\/p>\n
Starter: #41 Anthony Stolarz
#60 Joseph Woll<\/p>\n
Injured: Chris Tanev (LTIR)<\/p>\n
#93 Gage Goncalves \u2013 #21 Brayden Point \u2013 #86 Nikita Kucherov
#38 Brandon Hagel \u2013 #17 Dominic James \u2013 #59 Jake Guentzel
#28 Zemgus Girgensons \u2013 #37 Yanni Gourde \u2013 #29 Pontus Holmberg
#42 Curtis Douglas \u2013 #22 Oliver Bjorkstrand<\/p>\n
#90 JJ Moser \u2013 #43 Darren Raddysh
#51 Charle-\u00c9douard D\u2019Astous \u2013 #77 Victor Hedman
#27 Ryan McDonagh \u2013 #81 Erik Cernak
#78 Emil Lilleberg<\/p>\n
Starter: #88 Andrei Vaislevskiy
#31 Jonas Johansson<\/p>\n