Preview: Maple Leafs @ Seattle Kraken
The trade deadline road trip has begun.
Toronto Maple Leafs @ Seattle Kraken
07:00 PM at Climate Pledge Arena
Watch on: ROOT-NW, SNO
The Leafs last game was at home on February 24 against the Minnesota Wild, which Toronto won by a score of 2-1. The Leafs have a record of 36-15-8 so far.
The Seattle Kraken last played at home on February 23 against the Boston Bruins. The Kraken lost by a score of 6-5, and their current league record is 32-20-6.
Them
Are the Kraken good, or just Western Conference good? They have a top 10 Corsi % and a mediocre, muddy middle Expected Goals %, while leading the league in five-on-five Shooting %. Their goaltending has been very blah, or they’d likely be running away with the Western points lead.
Their offence generation is not very good, and they really are resting on the laurels of some shooting heaters. Which isn’t to say they don’t have good players, and they do play a smart and disciplined defensive system, but they seem like a team built for the Western bore-off that will be the first few rounds of the playoffs out there.
Lines
Jared McCann - Matthew Beniers - Jordan Eberle
Eeli Tolvanen - Yanni Gourde - Oliver Bjorkstrand
Daniel Sprong - Alexander Wennberg - Jesper Froden
Ryan Donato - Morgan Geekie - Brandon Tanev
Vince Dunn - Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak - William Borgen
Carson Soucy - Justin Schultz
Philipp Grubauer
Martin Jones
Us
At the most recent Leafs practice, Sheldon Keefe swapped out Mitch Marner and William Nylander. Several of us at PPP thought the Tavares line needed Marner and said that arrangement “Just Made Sense”. Now that Ryan O’Reilly is the centre on that line, the number of people shooting the puck or engaging with him in harder forechecking was not very large. So this switch back looks on paper like it now “Just Makes Sense”. We’ll see how it goes. Marner was never a detriment to the Matthews line. He has always fared identically well with either Marner or Nylander.
Rasmus Sandin is expected to return, so the defence pairs will revert to the more natural arrangement.
Lines
Michael Bunting - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
John Tavares - Ryan O’Reilly - William Nylander
Pierre Engvall - David Kämpf - Calle Järnkrok
Zach Aston-Reese - Noel Acciari - Alex Kerfoot
Morgan Rielly - TJ Brodie
Mark Giordano - Timothy Liljegren
Rasmus Sandin - Justin Holl
Ilya Samsonov
Joe Woll
The Game
Trade deadline week on the road can be weird, and we all know what happens to the Leafs when they end up in the Pacific time zone. Let’s just win this one, though, eh?
Go Leafs Go.