Wednesday’s FTB: Always make way for Willy

The Leafs started their Central Division road trip with an OT win in St. Louis.

The Maple Leafs kicked-off their Central Division road trip last night with a win against the St. Louis Blues. Here’s our play-by-play recap of the game:

Let’s watch that Nylander stripping the puck off Tarasenko and scoring the OT winner one more time.

The next stop on the Leafs road trip is in Phoenix where the Leafs will play for the first time in Mullet Arena, the temporary home for the Arizona Coyotes located at Arizona State University. The Leafs then go on to play the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night. By the way the Avalanche played the Coyotes last night and somehow the Coyotes beat them 6-3, so there’s hope for the Leafs! That Wednesday game is a 9:00 p.m. ET start, by the way.

Meanwhile, the Leafs may have a problem brewing—the good kind—with Morgan Rielly joining the team on this road trip, signalling the long recovery from his injury is almost over, but that means there will have to be a shakeup of the lines to make room for him, and then someone will be a healthy scratch each night. It may also mean the end of the five-forward power play. Here’s more on that:

Leafs’ prospects are also back from their Christmas breaks and playing again. Fraser Minter was making the highlight reels last night with the Kamloops Blazers.

He got the hat trick at the end of the game with a ENG, putting the Blazers up 6-4 on the Kelowna Rockets.