Toronto Maple Leafs @ Pittsburgh Penguins
07:00 PM at PPG Paints Arena
Watch on: SN, CBC, CITY, NHLN, TVAS, SN-PIT
The Leafs last game was away on November 28 against the Washington Capitals, which Toronto lost by a score of 4-2 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 10-11-3 for a 0.479 Points %.
The Pittsburgh Penguins last played away on November 28 against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Penguins won by a score of 4-3 in overtime, and their current league record is 12-6-5 for a 0.630 Points %.
Them
The weirdest tank in history sees the Penguins in the first wild card spot right now, and four points out of first place in the east. They are, however, maybe going to trade a goalie.
The other weird thing the Penguins do is just go ahead and post their lineup themselves a bit before game time. The below is from yesterday.
The Penguins are below average at five-on-five in all categories, but not basement dwellers by any means. They have an excellent power play and score regularly on that power play. The team Save % is fourth in the NHL, and they have the lowest Expected Goals Against in the NHL.
Lines
@Penguins via Daily Faceoff
Kevin Hayes – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust
Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin – Anthony Mantha
Danton Heinen – Ben Kindel – Ville Koivunen
Joona Koppanen – Blake Lizotte – Connor Dewar
Ryan Shea – Kris Letang
Parker Wotherspoon – Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves – Matt Dumba
Arturs Silovs – likely starter
Tristan Jarry
Us
The Leafs have some options to make changes to the lineup today, they can put Max Domi back in, and William Nylander will play if not ill.
We’re not getting the actual lines until warmup, so watch the GDT for that.
Lines
David Alter via Daily Faceoff from yesterday’s game
Matthew Knies – Auston Matthews – Nicholas Robertson
Easton Cowan – John Tavares – Bobby McMann
Matias Maccelli – Nicolas Roy – Dakota Joshua
Steven Lorentz – Scott Laughton – Calle Jarnkrok
Morgan Rielly – Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Simon Benoit – Jake McCabe
Dakota Mermis – Troy Stecher
Dennis Hildeby – starter
Joe Woll
The Game
There were some things to build on in yesterday’s game, and some big things to overcome.
For me, with all the things going on – injuries, bad goaltending, all the possession problems and the now more obvious offensive issues – the thing that gets me annoyed more than anything is the lack of push back.
This team plays appallingly badly up one goal, and when the other team starts to comeback, they fold. If they’d had a lead more often, I think this would be the thing to zero in on beyond all these other issues.
In situations within a game, they respond passively and without passion – not as bad as they were, but they do. When Easton Cowan scored the tying goal in Columbus, he was pumped, and very demonstrative. And I sat there thinking about Cowan is used to winning. He expects it. He thinks he deserves it. He thinks contributing to winning is what its all about.
Yeah, for a while last night, the zone exits were a bit better.