The Maple Leafs will need to take advantage of their heavily imbalanced schedule over the next month to have a legitimate chance to make the postseason. Between Tuesday night’s contest with the Nashville Predators and December 20th, Toronto will play 12 of their next 15 games at Air Canada Center.
After that stretch, the Leafs will have played more than half of their home games in the first 33 games of the season and face a daunting second half of the schedule, with 30 of their remaining 49 games on the road, starting with a seven game sojourn on the road extending through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays while the 2015 IIHF World Junior Championship are in town.
The Leafs bounced back from a rough 1-4 start, winning four straight home games against Buffalo, Chicago, New York and Boston prior to the 2-1 loss to Pittsburgh on Friday. Coming off a calamitous 6-2 loss in Buffalo on Saturday, Toronto must regain their composure to have a chance of defeating the surprising Preds, who trail the Central Division leading Blues with an 11-4-2 record under new coach Peter Laviolette.
The keys to Nashville’s resurgence are the top line of Filip Forsberg, Mike Ribiero and James Neal combining for 48 points(Forsberg leads all NHL rookies with 20 and was named the NHL’s Third Star this week) and the return of goaltender Pekka Rinne, who is 11-3-1, with a sparkling 1.92 GAA and .929 save percentage in 15 starts.
The Leafs will start Jonathan Bernier in goal, who has a career record of 8-2-0-0, 1.91 GAA and .933 save percentage vs. Nashville and could get the majority of the starts over the next month in the wake of James Reimer’s worst outing of the season in Buffalo on Saturday.
Reimer allowed six goals on 35 shots to a Sabres offense that had scored only 24 goals in 18 games this season. Bernier is 4-1-1 and has allowed only 11 goals in his last six starts and Toronto does not have back-to-back games on the schedule until December 10.
Defenseman Korbinian Holzer was returned to the AHL Marlies on Sunday and with the club carrying only six defensemen and 13 available forwards, it is expected that the Leafs will go with the same lineup that played on Saturday. Head coach Randy Carlyle may have more options in the near future, as forwards Brandon Kozun and David Booth took part in the morning skate on Tuesday.
Booth suffered a fractured foot in training camp and could be available within a week, while Kozun skated for the first time since suffering a high ankle sprain on October 17th vs Detroit and could be anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks away from being available.
Veteran Joffrey Lupul did not participate in Tuesday’s skate and his injured hand may keep him out longer than the original prognosis of three weeks(which would be this weekend).
Booth is probably a week away from being game ready. Lupul might be a little more than a week away. #TMLtalk
— Paul Hendrick (@HennyTweets) November 17, 2014*******
The (US) Thanksgiving holiday coincides with the one-quarter mark of the season, which is usually when NHL clubs decide to tinker with their roster. Leafs GM Dave Nonis may be pondering a few moves in the coming weeks and they may be furthered with discussions at this week’s GM’s meetings in Toronto.
Carlyle and Leafs management had high expectations for the current group and thought progress was being made going 6-1-1 after a 4-1 loss to Boston in late October, but bad habits returned in the two losses on the weekend.
“I just think we are too erratic and we are too inconsistent.… Carlyle said of his club on Tuesday.…We adopted a style that we felt we were getting through to them and we seemed to have lost it on the last weekend.…
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Here is Monday’s edition of Leaf Buzz with Norman James of CTV London and myself discussing the Leafs losses to Pittsburgh and Buffalo over the weekend.
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