LGD: Gently Nudge You Like The Hurricanes
By Shawn Reis
8 years agoThe Leafs have gotten at least a point in 7 of their 9 games in November largely thanks to the play of James Reimer, who now has a 6-2-3 record on the season and a .930 save percentage. Reimer and the Leafs will look to continue their run tonight when they face off against the Hurricanes in Carolina.
THE LEAFS
Expected lines via DailyFaceoff.com:
Nick Spaling is still out with an injury, so this is about what we can expect to see the Leafs put onto the ice tonight. The first line has been pretty fantastic albeit riddled with bad luck (namely from Nazem Kadri). P.A. Parenteau and Tyler Bozak have been getting on the score sheet a lot lately, as has Joffrey Lupul and Peter Holland. We’ll see if the team can continue to score enough to keep racking up the points. On defense, Martin Marincin is a guy whose had a really slow start to the year. Hopefully he can start to turn it around with him getting back in the lineup over Scott Harrington. But with all of this said, let’s not forget that the main cog to the Leafs’ recent success is the guy in net.
THE HURRICANES
Expected lines via DailyFaceoff.com:
Looking at these lines, it’s little surprise that Carolina currently sits 28th in the league. Guys like Kris Versteeg, Chris Terry, Joakim Nordstrom, and Riley Nash are all solid NHL players, but you don’t want them being your collective group of top-six wingers. That third line of Skinner, Rask, and Lindholm is interesting, but as much as I like all three of those players, Jeff Skinner and Elias Lindholm have just 6 points between them through a total of 36 games played. On defense, I love Justin Faulk, but when some guy named Jaccob Slavin is his partner, that’s probably not a good sign. Ron Hainsey and John-Michael Liles are decent, but are probably playing too prominent a role on that defense. Noah Hanifin has strong upside, but he’s still just a teenage rookie. In any event, it should serve as little surprise that this is one of the few teams that Toronto is ahead of in the standings.
STARTING GOALIES
It’s going to be James Reimer in goal again tonight. He’s been the Leafs MVP this season.
For Carolina, expectations are that it’s going to be Cam Ward in goal. The NHL vet has a 5-6-2 record this season with an .898 save percentage.
WHERE TO WATCH
The game starts at 7:00PM Eastern and will be on Sportsnet Ontario.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
- Tyler Bozak. He’s leading the team in scoring with 12 points in 15 games (I know, right?).
- Nazem Kadri. He’s got a ludicrous 81 shots on goal in just 19 games played, and an even more ludicrous one goal on the season (1.2% shooting).
- Peter Holland. After being a healthy scratch for 5 games, he now has 6 points in 5 games since returning to the lineup. In the one game back that he didn’t register a point, he had the shootout winner.
- Joffrey Lupul and P.A. Parenteau. #1 and #3 in team goal-scoring with 7 and 6 goals respectively, both of these guys have been on something of a hot streak lately and have proved to be an important part of the Leafs’ recent stretch of success.
- Matt Hunwick. He finally got his first point of the season on Tuesday against Colorado and now has just 1 point in 19 games. All of that said, he’s leading the team in ice-time, averaging 22:28 per game.
- Morgan Rielly. He has the worst +/- on the team at -6. When will Babcock open his eyes???
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