The Dallas Stars are in town, and the Toronto Maple Leafs need to respond with a better performance after being booed off the ice Saturday evening following a shutout loss to the Vancouver Canucks.

The Leafs are 17-8-0 overall at Scotiabank Arena this season but are just 5-5-0 in their last 10 games on home ice.

The Leafs beat the Stars 5-3 on the road on December 20th, but the Stars have responded to that loss with an 8-2-1 tear. They will be at a rest disadvantage in this matchup as they are playing their third game in four nights and the last of a five-game road trip.

I’ll detail the relevant game notes, as well as outline my favourite betting angles below.

The Stars enter this matchup in great form, as they hold a record of 8-1-1 over the last 10 games. In those matchups, they hold a goal differential of +13 and an expected goal share of 58.28%. After a surprisingly unproductive start to the campaign, Jason Robertson has put up 13 points in the last 10 games, which has helped to cover up the losses of Mason Marchment and Tyler Seguin to injury.

While the Stars have bounced back with a much more convincing run of play after a fairly middling start to the year, relative to their lofty expectations at least, a favourable schedule has certainly played a role in their recent dominance. During their 8-1-1 run, they have played only one playoff team in the Minnesota Wild, and the Wild were without several key pieces in that matchup.

The Stars may be among the long list of teams looking to add a right-side defender ahead of the trade deadline, as the offseason signing of Matt Dumba has been the disaster that many expected it to be. It’s hard to criticize Stars GM Jim Nill given the overall strength of his roster, but Dumba had a horrible season in 2023-24 and has followed it up with a -2.4 expected-goals-above-replacement rating this season.

Jake Oettinger is expected to start after resting Sunday in Ottawa. He holds a .910 save percentage and 2.35 GAA in 31 games played this season.

The Leafs were due for somewhat of a wake-up call after their ugly win in Philadelphia last Tuesday, and they certainly got one in losing back-to-back games by three goals versus the Carolina Hurricanes and the Canucks.

Over the last 12 games, the Leafs hold a record of just 7-5-0, with an expected goal share of 47.08%. They have scored 3.17 goals-for per game in that span and allowed 3.33 goals against per game in that span.  It’s not uncommon to see this kind of lapse in form at some point in the season from even the most dominant sides, like Dallas for instance, but it is clear that the Leafs’ game has regressed over the last month.

Head coach Craig Berube has shuffled the deck offensively ahead of this matchup, moving Steven Lorentz up to the top line to play alongside Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews. Matthew Knies will drop to the second line and play alongside William Nylander and John Tavares.

Knies, Nylander and Tavares have spent 35.4 minutes together this season, and have outscored opponents 2-0 while generating 64.5 shot attempts-per-60.

In an effort to try and solve their recent power play woes, the Leafs appear to be going back to the five-forward power play unit which we have seen at times this season in this matchup. While the amount of skill littered among the Leafs’ power play will always lead to high expectations, they do rank 12th in the NHL with a success rate of 23.1% over the last 10 games.

Joseph Woll is expected to start in this matchup. He holds a .912 save percentage and 2.58 GAA in 21 games played this season.

This matchup provides an excellent measuring stick for both of these supposed cup contenders to test their mettle. It’s no secret that the Leafs have not been at their best of late, and it seems likely that they will bounce back with a more spirited effort in this matchup after a humiliating loss against the Canucks on Saturday.

The Stars enter amid a dominant stretch of play, but their current roster does hold some weaknesses, and we could see them come down to earth when they get into a tougher scheduling patch. At the current prices, I actually lean with the Leafs and believe we will see a strong response from Toronto in this matchup.

Part of the Leafs’ lesser results of late has been a drop-off in form from Nylander, and the Stars are an elite team in terms of shot suppression. As a result, Nylander has a betting line of just 2.5 shots on goal in this matchup, when his line is typically always set at 3.5.

The combination of Knies, Tavares, and Nylander could prove quite effective, and they should get some favourable matchups in this game, as they likely won’t spend that much time against the Hintz line or Heiskanen pairing. It sounds like the top power play unit is really looking into the idea of shot volume ahead of this matchup, and we could see Nylander lean towards shooting on more of his touches with the man advantage.

At -140 or better, I see value in backing Nylander to record over 2.5 shots on goal in this matchup.