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LGD: But am I, still waiting?

Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

By Adam Laskaris

Apr 8, 2017, 15:20 EDT

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Tonight the Toronto Maple Leafs play game 81 of 82 in the regular season, and nothing sums up my feelings right now more than this.

I’m not going to tell you about the scenario they need to make it further, because I’ve done that twice so far this week and they’ve lost both times. I’m not nervous, you’re nervous!

There’s not much more to say. Let’s dive right in to the lineups:

The Leafs

LW	C	RW
Zach Hyman	Auston Matthews	William Nylander
Leo Komarov	Nazem Kadri	Connor Brown
James van Riemsdyk	Tyler Bozak	Mitchell Marner
Matt Martin	Brian Boyle	Kasperi Kapanen

Defensive Pairings
Morgan Rielly	Connor Carrick
Jake Gardiner	Nikita Zaitsev
Matt Hunwick	Roman Polak

Nothing I say will make your feel better or worse about the lineup. You know the lineup, I know the lineup. It’s a good lineup. I hope they’re playing NHL Hockey next Saturday, too.

The Penguins

LW	C	RW
Jake Guentzel	Sidney Crosby	Conor Sheary
Tom Kuhnhackl	Matt Cullen	Phil Kessel
Dominik Simon	Nick Bonino	Tom Sestito
Scott Wilson	Carter Rowney	Josh Archibald

Defensive Pairings
Brian Dumoulin	Justin Schultz
Ian Cole	Trevor Daley
Ron Hainsey	Mark Streit

Brownie points if you could say with a straight face you’d have Brian Dumoulin and Justin Schultz as the Penguins #1 d-pairing at this point of the year. The Penguins have like six dudes who have never been impact players in the NHL before this year, (and some of them are still waiting for that chance.)

Added note, doesn’t look like we’ll get to see Frank Corrado tonight.

Toronto’s fortunate enough I guess that Pittsburgh’s missing all of Olli Maatta, Kris Letang, and Evgeni Malkin to injuries.

It’s a weakened lineup, but it’s still the Penguins and they’re still very good. Let’s see how this one goes.