With another year of no playoff hockey on the horizon, the Toronto Maple Leafs look to close out the season on a positive note and snap their losing skid at home as they take on Claude Giroux and the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday.
This is the fourth and final meeting between the two teams this season. The Flyers have a chance to earn the season series sweep with a win at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday, beating the Maple Leafs on all three occassions this season. Philadelphia’s most recent win was a 1-0 shootout victory on Mar. 10 in which Giroux scored the only goal in the shootout.
Thursday’s game is the first for the Leafs since being mathematically eliminated from post-season contention on Tuesday after a 3-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. That marked the seventh time Toronto had been shutout this season, the fourth in their last ten games. It also marked their tenth-straight loss at home, last winning a game at the Air Canada Centre on Feb. 6. At that point, the Leafs sat sixth in the East, but a 5-16-3 skid has seen them fall to 14th and guaranteed to miss the playoffs for a seventh season in a row.
Following practice on Wednesday, Leafs head coach Randy Carlyle spoke of how his team needed to be better at home, saying that the fans deserved a better effort.
“We actually talked about that this morning,” Carlyle said. “About the fans and how passionate they are. How much the fans in Toronto give to the hockey club. We have to understand that there’s a higher level of responsibility back from us a hockey club to deliver more.
“We’re very, very fortunate to have those people supporting our group.”
The team’s goaltending situation, which has been faulted for much of the Leafs’ slide of 5-16-3 since Feb. 6, had a new wrinkle added to it as Ben Scrivens was practicing with the big club on Wednesday. Scrivens has been terrific with the Toronto Marlies this season, posting a 20-14-1 record with a 2.02 goals-against average and .927 save percentage.
Scrivens’ recall from the Marlies came one day after Jussi Rynnas stopped all ten shots he saw after taking over for Jonas Gustavsson in the loss to Carolina. While Rynnas was sent back down to the Marlies, Carlyle explained after practice that, “The goaltending situation is probably going to change a little bit between today and tomorrow.”
Much of the Leafs’ goaltending is a toss-up because of James Reimer who remains out with an upper-body injury that is believed to be a re-occurence of his concussion-like symptoms from earlier this season. It was revealed that Reimer was undergoing treatment but that the team was being careful due to his previous history.
“James has had treatment today and he’s still not feeling like himself,” Carlyle stated after practice. “Anytime a player comes back to you and says he doesn’t feel like himself, you’re going to take the necessary precautions. I don’t think it’s to that level [he experienced earlier this season] but you always are going to have caution when there is a history of some of that. We’re going to make sure we’re extra cautious.”
Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines (Subject to change)
Forwards
Lombardi-Bozak-Kessel
MacArthur-Grabovski-Frattin
Ashton-Connolly-Crabb
Rosehill-Armstrong-Brown
Defencemen
Dion Phaneuf – Carl Gunnarsson
John-Michael Liles – Cody Franson
Jake Gardiner – Luke Schenn
Goalies
Jonas Gustavsson
Jussi Rynnas/Ben Scrivens
For more on tonight's Flyers vs. Leafs game, including a detailed look at Philadelphia and their projected lines, check out my game preview on the brand new
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