As the Leafs prepare to take on their new-division-rival Jets, there’s a lot of moving parts to this game. Toronto has seen a bit of recent poor performance in net, after newly acquired David Rittich hasn’t been great, and as Jack Campbell falls a bit back down to Earth. Certainly one of the main hopes for Sheldon Keefe tonight is that the team gets some quality backstopping.

Another storyline is that as the Leafs fall, the Jets fly, up/down the standings that is. This is the first of three remaining games that Toronto has against the second place team in the North division, that being the Winnipeg Jets.

The last angle is that the Leafs’ highlight trade deadline acquisition in Nick Foligno will play his first game for Toronto tonight, and he’ll be getting quite the opportunity to shine.

As mentioned, Nick Foligno draws into the team tonight and gets to play on the first line with Matthews and Marner. Foligno certainly won’t be able to complain about a lack of opportunity here in Toronto.

Another couple of important line notes: Zach Bogosian left the contest against Vancouver with an injury and is out for a little while, so Travis Dermott draws back in to join the guy who replaced him, Rasmus Sandin, on the bottom pairing.

Lastly, Ilya Mikheyev is a game-time decision due to an undisclosed injury, and if he does have to sit, expect Pierre Engvall to slot into his place.

The trade deadline for the Jets was a bit disappointing, as they desperately needed a significant contributor on the back-end to shore up their lineup, but they could only manage to acquire another depth defender in Jordie Benn.

In positive news for Winnipeg, they expect to get Captain Blake Wheeler back into the lineup after he missed a few weeks with a concussion.

The Leafs will go with Jack Campbell in their net, while Winnipeg goes with Vezina-candidate Connor Hellebuyck.

This contest will be aired on Sportsnet at 7 p.m. Eastern time. I look forward to watching it with you all!