As the Leafs round the quarter mark of the season, they sit atop the Atlantic Division by 3pts, with a game in hand on the 2nd placed Florida Panthers. There’s so much hockey left to play that it’s not worth talking about their place in the standings yet, but the Leafs could really use to finish at the top of their division and it’s these games that would go a long way towards making that happen. Sounds like a game they’re destined to lose, in my opinion, but I keep hoping that the change in coaching philosophy has helped this team turn a corner, allowing them to show up in games they could use to win.
We’ll find out if Auston Matthews returns to the lineup tonight. Craig Berube has put that decision on the player, with Matthews saying “I think the individual skates were much different than a team practice, so this being kind of like the first actual team practice I’ve skated in, I’ve felt really good, but I might need maybe one or two to really get my legs and lungs back under me. But we’ll just kind of see how I respond today and take it and see what happens tomorrow.”
That doesn’t sound especially encouraging and most aren’t expecting Matthews to return against the Panthers tonight, but instead against Tampa Bay on Saturday night.
Here are their lines at practice, as of yesterday:
McMann-Tavares-Marner
Holmberg-Matthews-W.Nylander
Robertson-Minten-A.Nylander/Grebenkin
Steeves-Dewar-Lorentz
Rielly-OEL
Benoit-Timmins
Mermis*-Tanev
Myers-Hakanpaa
*Skating in place of Jake McCabe, who is expected to play, but missed practice for a maintenance day.
Stolarz
Woll
In other injury news Matthew Knies skated in a non-contact jersey, while Max Domi was absent and isn’t joining the team on their 2 game road trip.
The Leafs have won their last 4 games and 7 of their last 8, which means that every storyline at the moment is one that doesn’t come with any type of urgency. However, Pontus Holmberg (19GP, 1G, 3pts) being in the top 6 over Nick Robertson, a player whose job it is to score, would be a bigger talking point if they weren’t winning. Robertson, who requested a trade for a better opportunity this summer, has 1 goal in 18 games and has already been passed in the scoring race by rookie centre, Fraser Minten (2GP, 1G, 2pts). The Leafs are winning games but they aren’t doing that by way of depth scoring. If they expect to make a deep playoff run his will have to change, which means Robertson is going to have to start finding the back of the net or they’ll have to count their losses and move on from the player.
Enjoy the game. Go Leafs Go!!