Leafs look for a win with revamped blueline

Tonight, we find ourselves a matchup between two of the most surprising teams in the league, for completely different reasons. The Toronto Maple Leafs, as we know, have been underperforming despite the already low expectations of fans, with a 3-4-1 record and only just putting an end to a four game losing streak to the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday. On the other hand, the Detroit Red Wings have been surprising many, being a somewhat competitive team in the early going, giving a lot of good teams a scare every night. A 4-2-2 record is nothing special, but the fact that this team is doing well and maintaining good expected goals numbers is a good sign for them.

That’s what makes this a trap game of sorts. The Leafs might go into this thinking it’s the Red Wings teams of the last few years, and if they’re surprised, what we know about this team so far this year means it could get ugly for the Leafs.

That said, the Wings only loss that wasn’t a close one was their 6-1 loss to Montreal, which saw them without their leading scorer Tyler Bertuzzi, due to his unwillingness to be vaccinated. They’ll be without Bertuzzi again tonight, so that should help the Leafs.

For the Leafs, the big lineup change is that Justin Holl will be a healthy scratch, and Travis Dermott is going to get top 4 minutes alongside Jake Muzzin. The Muzzin-Holl pair has been off to a rough start this season, so a changeup was needed for the team. Of course, we still have yet to figure out if that pair’s struggles were just from Holl, or if Muzzin is hurt, or worse, starting to feel the effects of aging. Timothy Liljegren comes into the lineup as a result as well, playing with Rasmus Sandin on the third pair.