I’ve been told I’m not allowed to make any burning leaves jokes.
Toronto Maple Leafs @ Calgary Flames
09:00 PM at Scotiabank Saddledome
Watch on: TVAS, SNW, TSN4
The Leafs last game was an away game on March 1 against the Edmonton Oilers, which Toronto lost by a score of 5-2. The Leafs have a record of 37-16-8 so far.
The Calgary Flames last played at home on February 28 against the Boston Bruins. The Flames lost by a score of 4-3, and their current league record is 27-21-13.
Them
There is only one question with the Flames right now. Are they in or not? As they play their 62nd game tonight, they are in third place for the wild card in the west by points, and fourth by points %. They’re actually behind Nashville who are selling off all the assets and have thrown in the towel. It’s not impossible they make up the difference on two teams by the end of the season, but the absolute best they can hope for is a meeting with a top-ranked team in the first round.
Lines
Salim Nadim Valji via Daily Faceoff
Dillon Dube – Elias Lindholm – Tyler Toffoli
Jakob Pelletier – Nazem Kadri – Jonathan Huberdeau
Andrew Mangiapane – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman
Milan Lucic – Trevor Lewis – Walker Duehr
Rasmus Andersson – MacKenzie Weegar
Chris Tanev – Noah Hanifin
Nikita Zadorov – Dennis Gilbert
Jacob Markstrom – confirmed starter
Daniel Vladar
Us
Who is even on this team? We won’t know until much closer to game time, so this is last night’s lineup. Possible changes are Luke Schenn in for Liljegren, and Erik Gustafsson in for someone else. The Leafs might actually choose to just sit the entire right-shooting cadre of defenders, or they might only make one of the two watch from the press box.
We’ll update the lines later tonight.
Lines
Michael Bunting – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
John Tavares – Ryan O’Reilly – William Nylander
Alex Kerfoot – David Kämpf – Calle Järnkrok
Zach Aston-Reese – Noel Acciari – Sam Lafferty
Morgan Rielly – Justin Holl
TJ Brodie – Jake McCabe
Mark Giordano – Timothy Liljegren
Joe Woll – confirmed starter
Ilya Samsonov
The Game
Okay, why are the Flames flaming out? They have decent offence, excellent defence, a terrible power play and an okay PK. They have the fourth worst team save % at five-on-five and their shooting luck/finishing skill is very bad. Markstrom is the 48th goalie by Goals Saved over Expected per 60 for those with at least 10 games played. He’s the better of the two.
For the Leafs this game is a shot at redemption so they don’t end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard. Because we don’t find this stuff amusing anymore.
Go Leafs Go. (Don’t get burnt.)