The Toronto Maple Leafs are on life support. Though they sit just one point behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, tonight’s Game 78 for the Leafs. The wild card clubs in front of them (the Detroit Red Wings are in the first wild card spot) have played 75 (Columbus) and 76 (Detroit) games respectively. Toronto’s simply running out of time and have picked a straight up miserable time to drop eight of ten. That much is obvious.
Leafs can be left with anywhere from 0.4% to 17% chance of making playoffs after tonight. So it's kind of a big day.
— James Mirtle (@mirtle) April 3, 2014And as if things couldn’t get any worse for the Leafs, their opponent tonight? The Boston Bruins.
Boston’s been the Leafs’ version of the Grim Reaper for years now, winning 17 of 25 regular season contests against Toronto since the start of the 2009-10 season. And with just two regulation losses to their name since Mar. 1, the last coming last night in Detroit, the B’s chances of pushing the Leafs’ probability number down around or shortly 10 p.m. tonight seem legitimate, if not almost certain.
When it comes to the Bruins, this is a club that doesn’t like to lose two games in a row, regardless of their current situation (Boston’s atop the East by a nine-point margin with six games to go). In fact, the Bruins have lost two straight contests in regulation just three times this season, and haven’t since Jan. 7 and Jan. 9, when their California road swing got off to a rough start in Anaheim and LA.
“The odd loss kinda bugs us,… admitted B’s defensemen Dougie Hamilton this afternoon. And well, if we’re being honest, last night’s loss at the Joe Louis Arena was certainly an odd one.
The eventual game-winner for Detroit came on a bad change from Johnny Boychuk and failure to get the puck in deep from Carl Soderberg. That ultimately allowed Gustav Nyquist, the game’s hottest scorer since the Olympic break, to use his wheels and dance around a flat footed Zdeno Chara en route to his 28th goal of the season. But that’s not all that made last night’s loss an odd one for the B’s; They outplayed the Wings by a considerable margin in the opening two periods of play and even had a goal questionably disallowed in the first period.
But tonight, with Jarome Iginla expected back in the lineup after a breather last night, and in the second leg of a back-to-back (the Bruins have won 13 of 15 in this situation this season), the Bruins will look for a total rebound against a team that, well, gives up a lot of them.
Nobody in the league allows more shots per game than the Maple Leafs (35.8), and in the Bruins’ last contest against Toronto, a 4-3 loss on Jan. 14, they put 41 (15 in the third, too) on net. And if not for an undeniably superhuman effort from Jonathan Bernier that night, the B’s win. Period.
The Leafs will rely on him against the B’s once more tonight, too.
The 25-year-old Bernier stopped 22-of-24 on Tuesday, putting an end to his four-game losing streak (and Toronto’s eight-game losing streak), but comes into action with a 1-2-0 record, 4.76 goals against average and .872 save percentage in three career contests against the Black-and-Gold.
Boston counters with Chad Johnson. A winner in six straight, Johnson enters tonight’s game with one win in as many career games against the Maple Leafs, stopping 30-of-32 in a start against the Air Canada Centre earlier this season. The 27-year-old Johnson has nine wins and one shutout in 12 road starts this season, and 17-3-1 record in total this year.
The Bruins have won two of three games against Toronto this year.
On an additional lineup note, the Bruins will be without the services of Carl Soderberg tonight, as he heads back home for the birth of his child. That’ll put Chris Kelly back into the middle of the B’s third line, with Jordan Caron taking Kelly’s spot on the wing.