LGD: Quality of Competition

Morgan Rielly, when asked if he talks about the playoffs given where the Leafs are right now (via NHL.com):

I also like to check the standings every once in a while, and this morning they’re telling me that, on the heels of another Bruins loss, the Leafs now sit three points back of third in the Atlantic with four games in hand (though it’s really Ottawa that’s more likely the sitting duck). They head into Washington tonight to go up against one of the best, and stingiest teams in the league. 

The Caps have given up the fewest goals against in the conference, and rank fourth overall in Corsi Against per 60 minutes. To go on the road and get these two points is going to be difficult, but it’s a good measuring stick for this Leafs team that has recently been doing a nice job of taking care of teams they should beat. Now they need to get another win against a team they shouldn’t.

Nothing new here, Babcock is just going with what’s been working. Something to note, aside from Matthews’ dominance, is Connor Brown’s seven points over this five game winning streak. It’ll be interesting to see how long he sticks on that line. Obviously nothing but good things so far.

Like I mentioned at the top, the Caps are sound defensively and are among the best teams in the league, even if they’re not quite there in the standings yet with the leaders of their division. They’ve only given up 78 goals-against so far this season, with just the Dubnyk-led Wild surrendering fewer (76). The high-scoring Leafs did put up four on them the last time these two teams played, but it was against a tired Caps team visiting Toronto. We should expect things to be tighter this go round.

Holtby (0.929 save-percentage) has been confirmed to go for the Caps by our friends at Daily Faceoff. Toronto hasn’t confirmed their starter yet, but it’s reasonable to assume Andersen (0.924) gets the net.