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The Toronto vs. Vancouver rivalry on Hockey Day in Canada, a split-crowd atmosphere at Rogers Arena, nine All-Stars between the teams, and both sides are healthy and competitive in the standings. Doesn’t get much better than this for a mid-regular season game. Between the Edmonton, Colorado, and now Vancouver matchups, the Leafs continue to run the gauntlet against some of the most dangerous lines in the NHL. The Canucks haven’t always deployed Elias Pettersson on the left wing of their go-to JT Miller-Brock Boeser duo this season, but the goals through 90 minutes at five-on-five are 11-3 in favour of the Canucks when the three are together. Miller and Pettersson are hovering around the top five in NHL point scoring at 61 and 59 points, respectively, while Brock Boeser is currently tied for fifth in NHL goal scoring with 27.
Add it all up, it’s allowed the Canucks to outpace their 2.51 expected goals per 60 at five-on-five (which ranks just 23rd in the league) by a massive margin of 3.2 actual goals per 60 (which ranks first in the league). It’s also why the Canucks are probably not sustainably the best offensive team in the league at 3.78 goals per game, but it can’t be ignored that their goaltending — with an elite talent in net, Thatcher Demko — and defensive metrics are among the league’s best.
Head coach Rick Tocchet has the Canucks playing with a good five-man structure and they have three defense pairings they can rely on, led by the most offensively-productive defense pairing in the league, Quinn Hughes (53 points in 45 games) and Filip Hronek (36 points in 45 games).
It will provide a significant challenge for a Leafs team that has work to do to prove it can batten down the hatches consistently enough against high-octane offenses. A good run of defensive form against the Kings, Ducks, and Sharks (x2) during their four-game winning streak earlier in January has given way to a 1-3-1 stretch against the Islanders, Red Wings, Avalanche, Oilers, and Flames in which they’ve conceded four per game on average. The Leafs are not expected to change anything about their lineup from their recent come-from-behind 4-3 win over Calgary. Technically, they’re swapping Tyler Bertuzzi and Matthew Knies on the left wing and thereby re-uniting the Bertuzzi – Tavares – Nylander line from the start of the game, but that line played most of the Flames game together anyway. In goal, Vancouver native Martin Jones will start for the 10th time in the Leafs‘ last 11 games. Having spent most of his career out west, Jones has a great track record against his hometown Canucks with a career 12-4-2 record and .926 save percentage.
The Leafs are looking for their first win in Vancouver since December of 2019 having lost six consecutive at Rogers Arena.
Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines
Forwards
Pontus Holmberg – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
Tyler Bertuzzi –John Tavares – William Nylander
Matthew Knies – Max Domi – Calle Jarnkrok
Bobby McMann – David Kampf – Noah Gregor
Defensemen
Morgan Rielly – TJ Brodie
Simon Benoit – Jake McCabe
Mark Giordano – Timothy Liljegren
Goaltenders
Starter: #31 Martin Jones
#35 Ilya Samsonov
Scratched: Conor Timmins, William Lagesson, Nick Robertson, Ryan Reaves
Injured: John Klingberg, Joseph Woll
Vancouver Canucks Projected Lines
Forwards
Elias Pettersson – JT Miller – Brock Boeser
Ilya Mikheyev – Pius Sutter –Nils Hoglander
Dakota Joshua – Teddy Blueger – Conor Garland
Linus Karlsson* – Nilas Aman – Sam Lafferty
Defensemen
Quinn Hughes – Filip Hronek
Carson Soucy – Tyler Myers
Nikita Zadorov – Ian Cole
Goaltenders
Starter: Thatcher Demko
Casey DeSmith
Scratched: Andrei Kuzmenko*
Injured: Tucker Poolman, Phil Di Giuseppe
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