The Toronto Maple Leafs kicked off their three-game California swing with a shootout loss against the San Jose Sharks, and will look to respond when they take on the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.

Toronto now sits one point back of the Florida Panthers in the Atlantic Division race and is also only one point ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The team’s inability to beat up on soft competition remains a major narrative surrounding the team, but it’s recent play versus other contending teams has arguably been a greater concern.

While the Kings may not be a full-fledged Stanley Cup contender, they are 26-3-4 on home ice this season and 8-2-0 in the last ten games and will provide a stiff test for the struggling Leafs.

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

The Leafs once again failed to secure both points from a matchup versus the league’s worst teams on Thursday, and it was quite clear that Toronto lacked a professional compete level early on in the contest. Toronto held a 14-12 edge in high-danger scoring chances, but allowed 35 shots against one of the league’s thinnest offences. Joseph Woll wasn’t good, and neither was the team in front of him.

The idea that the Leafs take more nights off versus bottom feeders appears to be overblown looking at their actual results relative to the Panthers and Lightning. If the Leafs were actually faring better than the other Atlantic leaders in soft matchups, it would be an edge that would have them on top of the division. Their results versus weak teams are far from the greatest reason they may not win the division, though.

The greater issue seems to be that the Leafs simply have not been playing that well overall right now, compared to simply a perceived lack of effort against weak opponents. Their recent results versus top teams have been drastically worse than those coming versus middling and bottom teams, as you would expect.

It’s easy to point to a lack of effort from top stars for all the losses. It is also looking more possible that head coach Craig Berube’s team has been systematically less effective than last season under former head coach Sheldon Keefe’s watch, which is not something that has generally been discussed often due to Berube’s well-earned reputation.

You can point to the Leafs roster construction revolving around the ‘core four’ as flawed, but this Leafs roster is undoubtedly not worse than last year’s. If anything, it is better, thanks to the additions of Chris Tanev and Anthony Stolarz as well as the development of Matthew Knies.

Despite Joseph Woll and Stolarz having combined for a +25.3 GSAx rating, the Leafs have allowed 2.97 goals against per game this season, which ranks 17th in the league. Through 72 games last season, the Leafs had allowed 3.13 goals against per game, which ranked 14th in the league.

The Leafs 3.30 xGA/60 rating throughout the entirety of this season ranks 25th in the league. In the month of March they have allowed 3.36 xGA/60, which ranks 23rd in the NHL.

Even if you don’t believe in the underlying numbers, it’s hard to say this team has been better defensively, as they have clearly received better goaltending yet have a worse GAA relative to the rest of the league compared to last year at this time.

Toronto has still been in good form offensively, which is to be expected given all of the money allotted to high-end forwards. It has scored 3.62 goals per game in the month of March, which ranks fifth in the NHL.

Stolarz is expected to get the start in goal. He holds a +14.2 GSAx rating and .917 save percentage in 28 appearances this season.

The Kings enter off a convincing 4-0 road loss at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche, who are looking more and more like the team to beat in the Western Conference. Aside from that outing though, the Kings have looked quite well-rounded recently and appear to be a better team than last season.

For a fourth straight season, the Kings have been one of the league’s best defensive teams. They have allowed only 2.52 goals against per game and rank first in xGA/60 this season.  While they have held excellent defensive metrics for several seasons in a row, they have not had a goaltender offering the level of play that Darcy Kuemper has this season. Kuemper holds a +15.3 GSAx rating and .918 save percentage in 42 games played.

Offensively, the Kings look to be a better side than last season when they were still playing the 1-3-1. They have scored 3.06 goals per game since the 4 Nations Face-Off and have generated 2.98 xGF/60.

After a slow start to the season, 2020 third overall pick Quinton Byfield has found his game offensively with 22 points in his last 25 games played. Byfield has found strong chemistry playing alongside highly dynamic forward Kevin Fiala, who has put up 22 points over the last 25 games.

The greatest reason for the Kings three straight playoff eliminations in Round One versus the Edmonton Oilers has been their horrid power play, which has once again been a weakness this season. Their power play has been more effective recently, however, as it holds a 20.9% success rate since the break and a 23.1% success rate since the addition of Andrei Kuzmenko at the trade deadline.

This is a massive spot for the Leafs to bounce back with a much better performance than we saw in San Jose on Thursday. More than simply needing to garner two points, Toronto has lots to prove right now in terms of its ability to fare well versus a high quality opponent like Los Angeles.

On paper I still believe the Leafs are the better team, but they have not played like it for a fairly large sample. At a price of +126, backing the Leafs and hoping for one of their best showings would be my preferred option in terms of betting a side, but I see more value with the total.

There are some solid arguments as to why this could be a low-event game, but it’s hard to pass up betting the over in a game featuring a low total of 5.5 in a game involving the Leafs right now.

Berube will continue to preach defensive accountability after another shaky defensive performance in San Jose, but until we actually see it, it seems fair to view the Leafs as a defensively flawed side right now. The Kings are one of the league’s best defensive teams, but it still seems reasonable to think the Leafs high-powered offence can find some success in this matchup.

At -108 I see value backing this game to feature six goals or more and would play it to -113.