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Shaking it up with season on the line; Game 5 – Leafs vs. Bruins |
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The Toronto Maple Leafs have their backs against the wall and no room left for error in their best-of-seven series against the Boston Bruins.
The Leafs missed a great opportunity to even the series with Patrice Bergeron not in the lineup on Thursday, but the Selke Trophy nominee could get back in the lineup for Game 5 at TD Garden on Saturday.
“(Bergeron) looked good this morning.” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy told the media after the morning skate. “I anticipate he’ll play, but we will make that decision after warm-up, but it is looking good.”
Leafs head coach Mike Babcock will get the services of center Nazem Kadri back after being suspended three games for the hit on Tommy Wingels in Game 1 and the return of the 30-goal scorer could be a much needed boast for the Toronto offense, which has scored nine goals in four games (2.25 goals per game) and their power play, which has scored twice in the series.
Kadri’s return and the inability of the Toronto offense to get going has forced Babcock to shake up his lines in advance of Game 5.
“[Kadri] being back changes things for us.” Babcock said. “I haven't decided which center is going to play on which line, to tell you the truth, on a few of them. By game time tonight we'll know, see how guys are going in the first five minutes and go from there.”
With Babcock indicating that only two lines performed well on Thursday, Kadri resumed his spot on the second line with Patrick Marleau and Mitch Marner, Connor Brown was elevated to the top line with Auston Matthews and Zach Hyman, William Nylander was moved to the fourth line with Andreas Johnsson and Tomas Plekanec and Kasperi Kapanen was shifted to the third line with James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak.
The revamped lines could be a strategy to shake Matthews loose from the checking of Bergeron and the pairing of Zdeno Chara and Charlie McAvoy with Boston having the last change, but the Leafs head coach hinted that he may shift things around again if Toronto gets off to a slow start.
“They're going to match against [Matthews] so I don't think that's a tougher decision. I think it's just the way it is. The bottom line is it wasn't going, we've got to change something and try to get it going.” Babcock said. “It's not like there's a lot of change, if you're right in the game, things have been going pretty good. But, the bottom line is we're not scoring enough and we need to score.”
In the end, Toronto will need their top players to step up in they are to force a Game 6 on Monday. Frederik Andersen was by no means at fault for the loss in Game 4, but the Leafs goaltender must make some big saves to swing the momentum back in the Leafs direction.
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