LGD: Stand back there’s a Hurricane coming through
6 years ago
The Leafs are at home for the final time in 2017 this afternoon, as they host the Carolina Hurricanes at the ACC.
This game holds significant importance to the NHL, as it marks 100 years since the league was formed. Why they marked this with a game against the Hurricanes is weird – surely an original six matchup would have been more fitting? That being said Carolina has won a Stanley Cup more recently than Toronto, so who am I to judge?
Hopefully this week will start better than last week, where the Buds were pretty awful and dropped all three games on the road to Philly, Minnesota and Detroit.
But home-comforts are calling, and the Leafs welcome a pretty decent Carolina team that has already defeated them this season on home ice 6-3.
The Canes currently sit in 7th position in the Metro division which may sound bad, but they are actually just four points outside of a wild card spot so they will be desperate to get two points today against a conference rival.
A three game winning streak for the Canes this past week was just the tonic after they had dropped seven in a row at the end of November and start of December. So expect a confident road team tonight.
Projected Leaf lines
| LW | C | RW |
|---|---|---|
 PATRICK MARLEAU |  WILLIAM NYLANDER |  ZACH HYMAN |
 LEO KOMAROV |  NAZEM KADRI |  CONNOR BROWN |
 JAMES VAN RIEMSDYK |  TYLER BOZAK |  MITCH MARNER |
 MATT MARTIN |  DOMINIC MOORE |  KASPERI KAPANEN |
Projected Hurricane lines
| LW | C | RW |
|---|---|---|
 JEFF SKINNER |  VICTOR RASK |  TEUVO TERAVAINEN |
 BROCK MCGINN |  JORDAN STAAL |  JUSTIN WILLIAMS |
 SEBASTIAN AHO |  DEREK RYAN |  ELIAS LINDHOLM |
 JOAKIM NORDSTROM |  MARCUS KRUGER |  JOSH JOORIS |
It sorta feels like Carolina are the opposite to the Leafs as they have a tonne of good young defenseman but not much going on upfront. Toronto currently boasts four players with more than 10 goals this season while the Canes currently have just one in Jeff Skinner who has 11.
Starting goalies
| GOALIES | |
|---|---|
 FREDERIK ANDERSEN |  CURTIS MCELHINNEY |
| GOALIES | |
|---|---|
 SCOTT DARLING |  CAM WARD |
No shock that the Leafs are lining up with Freddie tonight who is currently one of the hottest goalies in the NHL. He has only posted three games since November where he has saved less than .915 shots.
Freddie did not play against Detroit on Thursday night which means he has had one of his longest spells of rest this season.
In net for the Canes is former Blackhawk back up Scott Darling who has struggled this season, posting a .903 save percentage. He had a bounce back game last time out against Columbus where he saved 35 of 36 but prior to that he was posting some putrid numbers, all below .875.
Notes:
- The Leafs recalled Martin Marincin to the big leagues after Nikita Zaitsev went down with an injury. Though he will be watching from the press box tonight.
- Auston Matthews will miss his ninth game of the season against the Canes – the Leafs are currently at 5-3-0 without their star centerman.
- William Nylander looks like he will play center tonight which is exciting as a lot of fans believe he will eventually be moved their permanently. If the Leafs eventually line up with Matthews-Nylander-Kadri as their top three centers then we will be in for a very exciting few years!
- Carolina boasts the fourth worst powerplay in the NHL as they have netted on just 14.7% of their extra man opportunities. Their penalty kill is not great either as they sit sixth from last in that regard.
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