LGD – Give Jim Nill every hockey award forever
By Ryan Fancey
9 years agoIt’s December, often known as “Deathcember” for Leafs fans, and the team is starting the month off with a game against a not-so-familiar foe. The Stars, who look sort of scary at first glance, are in town, and they’re desperate for wins. After an eventful summer that had folks ready to hand them the Cup for ten years in a row, they’ve stumbled in a big way, and are a wreck defensively, conceding 84 goals through 24 games. Those are almost Oilers-level numbers.
This will be the second of a five-game home stand for the Leafs, which started off nicely with a destruction of the Capitals this past Saturday.
The Leafs
Projected lines via DailyFaceoff.com
James van Riemsdyk-Young Bozak-Phil Kessel
Joffrey Lupul-The Dream-Mike Santorelli
Daniel Winnik-Peter Holland-Davey Clarkman
David Booth-Trevor Smith-Richard Panik
Dion Phaneuf-Cody Franson
Jake Gardiner-Korbinian Holzer
Morgan Rielly-Stephane Robidas
The Stars
Projected lines via DailyFaceoff.com
Jamie Benn-Tyler Seguin-Ales Hemsky
Erick Cole-Jason Spezza-Patrick Eaves
Antoine Roussel-Cody Eakin-Ryan Garbutt
Shawn Horcoff-Vernon Fiddler-Travis Moen
Trevor Daley-Jason Demers
Alex Goligoski-John Klingberg
Jyrki Jokipakka-Jordie Benn
I’m not sure what that defence group is supposed to be, but it’s certainly something.
As mentioned above, the Stars are having a rough time keeping pucks out of their net this season. They used a little three-game win streak last week to get out of the lottery talk, but then dropped games to the Wild and Avalanche, giving up ten goals in the process. If the Leafs get four lines going and start things off aggressively, they should be able to get the offense going early and put the Stars in a hole.
Starting Goalies
What to look for
- Lots of goals, maybe.
- Some replays of Robidas breaking his leg with the Stars last year.
- Young Bozak to get into the NHL’s top-20 in points
- More talk about the Kessel-Seguin trade, but totally more tolerable now
- A Jason Spezza drop-pass to nobody
- I’m not sure if the Toronto rule applies to Spezza because he played with the Sens for so long, but a quick Google search shows that Daley is also from the Big Smoke, so pencil him in for a goal. All we can do is hope it’s not too damaging.
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