Tonight (or this afternoon if you’re in Vancouver), the Leafs will take on the Canucks at the Air Canada Center.

The Canucks have been on quite the skid lately, with a 2-7-1 record in their last 10 games. The Leafs haven’t fared too much better themselves, going 4-5-1 in their last 10.

Tonight’s lines from DailyFaceoff are as follows:

This will be Travis Dermott’s first game as a Toronto Maple Leaf, which is an exciting developmental opportunity for him. Babcock said on Friday when Dermott was called up that he would only put Dermott in if he shows he “can help the team”, and it looks like he has done that.

The Canucks are without their two of their top three centerman, Bo Horvat and Brandon Sutter, which certainly will affect them. Stepping in are Nic Dowd and Michael Chaput.

The Canucks are definitely a basement team this year, but with the parity of the league there are no guaranteed wins. Key for the Leafs will be deciding to use their shutdown unit with Nazem Kadri on the Sedin twins, or on Brock Boeser. The depth of the Canucks is lacking much dangerous scoring, and as such there is a good opportunity here for the Marner line or the Matthews line to exploit an easier-than-usual match-up.

The shot attempt stats paint just as good a picture for the Maple Leafs. The Canucks sit at ~47% in both Adjusted CF% and Adjusted xGF%, compared to the Leafs who are running at ~50% and ~51% respectively.

Somewhat weirdly, there has recently seemed to be a special intensity to Leafs-Canucks games. Perhaps it’s the time-zone-based frustration, but there has never been at time when both teams were chasing a Cup and fighting tooth and nail for points in the standings. It would be nice, regardless, to see that intensity appear tonight.