LGP 58: Battle of the Border

The Leafs are back tonight and playing against the Sabres. It’s been a crazy last few days, but the Leafs are starting to get settled with their new lineup and will look to start building momentum down the stretch. The Leafs are against a decent Sabres team and will need to play a full game tonight to come out with a win. They will also need to neutralize Thomson and Dahlin, especially to increase their chances of winning tonight.

Leafs Projected Lineup

Sabres Projected Lineup

Forwards

Skinner – Thomson – Tuch

Peterka – Cozens – Olofsson

Mittlestadt – Krebs – Quinn

Girgensons – Jost – Okposo

Defense

Dahlin – Jokiharju

Power – Samuelsson

Lyubushkin – Bryson

Goalies

Luukkonen

Anderson

Three Things to Look Out For

Samsonov

After being out with sickness, Samsonov played on Sunday and looked like he was still a bit sick. Samsonov is the projected starter tonight and has had two more days to recover, so I expect his game to be better than Sunday’s. Keep an eye on him tonight as he looks to rebound and be a factor for the Leafs tonight.

O’Reilly

O’Reilly is now in his third game with the Leafs and is starting to build some chemistry with his current linemates, Tavares and Marner. So far, O’Reilly has come as advertised and been a defensively responsible player. With that said, he has been on the ice for a large portion of the Leafs goals against, and I believe that’s mainly just the transition to a new team and getting used to new linemates. His line has looked solid from an eye test so far, and will look to convert their high expected goals percentage to actual goals.

Tavares

It seems that Tavares will get some runway on the wing here based on comments by head coach Keefe. Having brought in two centers in the deal on Friday, there’s flexibility to play around with the combinations. I believe one that’s been discussed for a while is what the result could be from having another center (in this case, O’Reilly) take on the role and defensive responsibilities leaving Tavares runway to focus more on offense. I don’t know if that’s the best move, as a Matthews, Tavares, and O’Reilly top 3 punch sounds dangerous, but we will see the results over the next few games. I believe this line needs to be dominant in order to stay together.

Tonight’s battle of the border begins at 7:30 pm EST on TSN.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to follow me on Twitter @nathan_bondy.

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