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GDT: Canes v. Leafs 12/11 7:00

A

andyt

Canes Moderator
Staff member
The Canes return from a west coast swing.

Tonight kicks off a stretch of 3 games in 4 nights and 4 games in 6. The first 3 are against teams in playoff positions. To illustrate how tight the standings are, the Canes were 3rd in the division after beating the Kings; now they’re 6th, 2 points behind the Islanders with a game in hand. Ferland is back and will play. Darling is back and shouldn’t.

The Leafs were here the day before Thanksgiving and were beaten 5-2. They come in on a 2 game losing streak giving up 11 goals in those games. Tampa has opened an 8 point lead in their division but the Leafs still have the 2nd best record in the league. Canes killer John Tavares has 18 goals, tied for 9th in the league, Mitch Marner has 34 assists, 2nd in the league.

Fox Sports Carolinas for TV.
 
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That November 20th Leafs team was short both Auston Matthews and William Nylander, so yeah, worried about how this one might go.
 
For the record, the schedule this year is particularly screwed up, even by the NHL's lofty standards. The Canes come home from a long-ish roadie and then cram three games into four days (one on the road) only to then return to that leisurely thing where they will have three days off in consecutive weeks. I mean, the whole season is riddled with crap like this. We're not even to Christmas and the Canes have already had FOUR breaks of three days or longer, with those two more to come before the end of the year. Then in 2019, aside from the All Star break, they will have ONE break of three days or longer for the whole rest of the season. Schedule monkey needs rehab, guys.
 
Lines from the morning skate. Martinook stays with the Finns, Ferland slides onto Bishop’s line. Mrazek in goal.

Martinook-Aho-Teravainen
Svechnikov-Wallmark-Williams
Ferland-Bishop-McGinn
Foegele-Rask-Di Giuseppe

Slavin-Hamilton
de Haan-Faulk
van Riemsdyk-Pesce
 
andyt said:
Lines from the morning skate. Martinook stays with the Finns, Ferland slides onto Bishop’s line. Mrazek in goal.

Martinook-Aho-Teravainen
Svechnikov-Wallmark-Williams
Ferland-Bishop-McGinn
Foegele-Rask-Di Giuseppe

Slavin-Hamilton
de Haan-Faulk
van Riemsdyk-Pesce
Click to expand...

Wow. One key injury and we become comically thin up front.
 
Those lines are an example of trying way too hard to balance out the talent. Having Martinook with Aho and Teravainen is really really pointless.

That said those lines don't have to stick very long. I will be interested to see what Bishop does out there with McGinn and Ferland. He was exceptional in that Anaheim game and I think deserves this look with some talented wingers. I will be stunned if he does anything with that look, but he was a monster out there the last game they played. This fits the 'reward good play with more ice time and responsibilities' message as does Rask being on the line that likely will not play all that much 5v5. Still it leaves Martinook comically overslotted.
 
Head scratcher line up that really shows how thin we are on offense-- but we ALL knew that going into the season. Predictably, one or two injuries really show how thin we are. Not sure why we aren't taking the opportunity to pull someone to play wing up here...
 
Martinook skated with the Finns in Anaheim too. These lines basically reflect swapping Ferland for Maenalanen and nothing else.
 
andyt said:
Martinook skated with the Finns in Anaheim too. These lines basically reflect swapping Ferland for Maenalanen and nothing else.
Click to expand...

This. And that line actually looked pretty frisky in that game. Let Ferland work his way back to form.
 
Let Brind'Amour coach and make his assignments as he sees fit.

This will be a game where the Leafs will look to re-gain their form heading into Tampa later this week and this will be one where our guys need to step up and play a solid game. Hopefully the schedule won't play into rusty, slow legs as that could hurt. This is one of those games where I expect to see how we measure up against a league leader.
 
4 m penalty 2 shots.. and tepid only 1 "chance" and That got looked into the glove (At least it wasn't goalie center logo... ) This PP is Abysmal...
 
On the goal, Hamilton had the daily double -- the lazy giveaway off the boards in our zone (looked a lot like the one the previous game) to start the Leafs off, then losing track of Ennis who was right behind him, scoring.
 
StormChaserBH said:
On the goal, Hamilton had the daily double -- the lazy giveaway off the boards in our zone (looked a lot like the one the previous game) to start the Leafs off, then losing track of Ennis who was right behind him, scoring.
Click to expand...

.... and then lest we think that was impressive, he said "Hold my beer"..... and topped it for the 2nd one.
 
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