Game #5 Preview: Hurricanes vs Maple Leafs

Hurricanes (4-0-0) vs Maple Leafs (2-3-1)


Frederik Andersen faces his former team. A struggling Leafs team that needs to turn it around.

And the 1st rematch since the David Ayres game that feels like it happened a century ago.

It’s just another typical Leafs-Canes game tonight.


Previous Meeting

The last game these two teams played was February 22nd, 2020.

The infamous game where David Ayres, the emergency goalie who was also the Zamboni driver for

Toronto’s AHL team, came in and ended up winning in place of Petr Mrazek and James Reimer,

who both went down with injuries earlier in that game.  Carolina won the game by a final score of 6-3,

led by the play from the two-star Fins Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen. 


Bad Luck Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs record may be deceiving at this point of the season. The underlying numbers tell us

that Toronto is going to turn their offense around, and rather quickly. Three of their top forwards are in the

bottom 10 for Goals Above Expected




(Via TopDown Hockey, and @JFreshHockey on Twitter)Toronto has been creating the chances, but their finishing has not come to them this season just yet.

That will likely turn around for the Leafs. If that does, then their early-season struggles should go away.


Projected Lines

Kotkaniemi-Aho-Teravainen

Svechnikov-Trocheck-Necas

Neiderreiter-Staal-Fast

Lorentz-Stepan-Martinook


Slavin-Bear

Skjei-Pesce

Cole-DeAngelo


Andersen


Scratches: B. Smith, Jarvis


What the Analytics Predict

MoneyPuck.Com gives Carolina a 56.1% chance of winning tonight

Leafs-Canes games are always high-scoring, fast-paced, and very entertaining. This game should be

no different tonight. Both Toronto and Carolina are in the NHL’s top six in 5-on-5 expected goals for/60.

Toronto: 3.38

Carolina: 2.74


Players to Watch

Andrei Svechnikov won’t stop scoring. He has four goals and has added three assists to his early campaign.

It is not unrealistic to think that he can reach 100 points this season, Andrei has always had the talent,

but now he has the experience and the opportunities to get to that level.


It will be interesting to see how Marner plays tonight, the Leafs team as a whole is under scrutiny

from the aggressive Toronto media, but Marner, in particular, has been put under the microscope.

Mitch is incredibly talented and usually has good performances against Carolina.

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