Marner misses second straight game as Maple Leafs close out mini road trip in Philadelphia

After nearly a week since their last game, the Toronto Maple Leafs return to the ice tonight for game action as they visit Philadelphia to close out their mini three-game road trip against the Flyers.

However, they’ll be without one of their key players yet again, as Mitch Marner is unavailable for tonight’s contest, making the forward miss a second consecutive game after sustaining a lower-body injury in a game against the Boston Bruins on March 7th. Unlike in the absence of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares, and Morgan Rielly, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ results are worse without Marner than the others. According to Statmuse.com, the Maple Leafs have a record of 14-13-4 all-time without the winger in the lineup, which dates back to the 2016-17 season.

Here are their yearly records without Marner in the lineup:

Although their record is barely over .500 for the entire eight-year stretch, Toronto has faired well without him in the lineup over the past three seasons compared to the first five years of his career. Since the 2021-22 season, the Maple Leafs have gone 8-4-2, including 3-1-0 over the past two seasons and 2-0-0 this season.

In Marner’s absence, Sheldon Keefe and his coaching staff have juggled the forward lines a bit, and after their game against the Montreal Canadiens last Saturday night, which resulted in a narrow 3-2 win, it appears they have done so again.

The bottom six remains the same after an impressive showing from Matthew Knies, David Kampf, and Bobby McMann on Saturday night, along with the fourth line staying the same. However, Keefe has made one swap in the top six. William Nylander has switched spots with Calle Jarnkrok, reuniting Nylander with John Tavares and bumping Jarnkrok up to the first line with Tyler Bertuzzi and Auston Matthews.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that the top line from the Canadiens game has been broken up, given their poor play that night. Just by the eye test, they were the worst line at five-on-five for Toronto, and the numbers backed that up. According to Moneypuck.com, they were outscored 1-0 at five-on-five, outshot 6-3, lost the shot attempt battle 11-6, and generated an xGF% of just 28.0%, which was the lowest on Toronto and the second lowest in the entire game for lines that played a minimum of five minutes at five-on-five.

Tyler Bertuzzi – Auston Matthews – Calle Jarnkrok

Max Domi – John Tavares – William Nylander

Matthew Knies – David Kampf – Bobby McMann

Pontus Holmberg – Connor Dewar – Ryan Reaves

TJ Brodie – Jake McCabe

Morgan Rielly – Ilya Lyubushkin

Joel Edmundson – Timothy Liljegren

One lineup note: After being a healthy scratch against the Montreal Canadiens on the weekend, Simon Benoit is projected to be a healthy scratch on the blue line again tonight in Philadelphia against the Flyers in favour of newly acquired Joel Edmundson and Timothy Liljregen, who Sheldon Keefe said needs his right-shot in the lineup despite his recent struggles.

Owen Tippett – Scott Laughton – Travis Konecny

Joel Farabee – Morgan Frost – Tyson Foerster

Denis Gurianov – Sean Couturier – Bobby Brink

Noah Cates – Ryan Poehling – Garnet Hathaway

Cam York – Travis Sanheim

Marc Staal – Ronnie Attard

Egor Zamula – Erik Johnson

Ilya Samsonov (TOR) vs Samuel Ersson (PHI)

TSN4, 7:30pm ET/4:30 pm PT

(Stats from hockey-reference.com)

(Projected lineups from dailyfaceoff.com)