Numbers to know: 54.8. That’s the percentage of face-offs won by the Maple Leafs through the first two games. It continues a trend of success by Toronto, which ranked second in the NHL during the regular season with a face-off percentage of 53.7 percent.
What to look for: The Maple Leafs expect the Senators to attempt to carry the play and make a strong push in the opening 10 minutes on Ottawa’s home ice. It will be interesting to see how many Maple Leafs supporters are in the building, since there are thousands of them whenever Toronto visits here during the regular season.
What they are saying
“I think them being at home, with the crowd and everything, they’re going to make a hard push here earlier. And I think things get harder as the series goes on, as they do in every series.” — Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube
“Obviously the home team always has an advantage. They have a lot of star power over there and we’ll just try to find a way to limit their chances. Obviously with giving them that much power-play time (Toronto is 4-for-7 with the man advantage in the series), it didn’t really help us, but I think at 5-on-5 we’ve done a pretty good job so far. I hope the matchups will help tonight.” — Senators forward Tim Stutzle
Maple Leafs projected lineup
Matthew Knies — Auston Matthews — Mitch Marner
Pontus Holmberg — John Tavares — William Nylander
Max Pacioretty — Max Domi — Bobby McMann
Calle Jarnkrok — Scott Laughton — Steven Lorentz
Morgan Rielly — Brandon Carlo
Jake McCabe — Chris Tanev
Simon Benoit — Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Anthony Stolarz
Joseph Woll
Scratched: Dakota Mermis, Philippe Myers, David Kampf, Artur Akhtyamov, Nicholas Robertson
Injured: Jani Hakanpaa (lower body)
Senators projected lineup
Brady Tkachuk — Tim Stutzle — Claude Giroux
Fabian Zetterlund — Dylan Cozens — Drake Batherson
Ridly Greig — Shane Pinto — Michael Amadio
David Perron — Adam Gaudette — Nick Cousins
Jake Sanderson — Artem Zub
Thomas Chabot — Nick Jensen
Tyler Kleven — Nikolas Matinpalo
Linus Ullmark
Anton Forsberg
Scratched: Dennis Gilbert, Travis Hamonic, Matthew Highmore
Injured: Hayden Hodgson (lower body)
Status report
Pacioretty took reps at the net front on the second power-play unit during the morning skate. … Greig also missed the morning skate but is likely to play.
NHL.com independent correspondent Callum Fraser contributed to this report
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
