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Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Ottawa Senators – Game #69 Preview, Projected Lines & TV Info

Published

2 years ago

March 18, 2023

The storylines for tonight begin in net, where Matt Murray will make his first start against his former team after missing out on the January 27 loss to Ottawa due to a last-minute injury issue.

At the other end, injuries have been the major story in the Senators’ crease, where their top two netminders in Anton Forsberg and Cam Talbot are out, with only Talbot having any hope of a return before the season’s end. That leaves Mads Sogaard, who has been lit up for 14 goals in his last three starts (all losses), carrying the load for the time being. The rookie goaltender is trying to shake off a blooper of a game-losing goal against Colorado on Thursday:

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Especially with the Leafs rolling in off a convincing win over Carolina in the first half of this back-to-back, there might be an opportunity for the Leafs to jump on the Senators early by testing a green goalie who has to be battling some self-doubt at the moment.

In the back-to-back situation against a rested opponent, the Leafs will return to 12 and 6 while bringing in fresh legs in the form of Justin Holl — who was scratched last due to the rotation underway on defense, not for performance reasons — as well as Wayne Simmonds and callup Bobby McMann. In addition to Erik Gustafsson, team greybeard Mark Giordano will be given the night off — the first time the Leafs have taken this initiative to give the 40-year-old some rest down the stretch.

McMann has responded to his demotion in late January in as perfect of a fashion as possible, tallying two hat tricks and 13 goals in total over the 12 games with the Marlies. His original stay might have been a longer one if he had a little more puck luck initially (including a disallowed goal in Detroit) to gather some early momentum as he flashed some promise with his size, pace, work rate, and willingness to drive the net.

McMann will start on a line with Sam Lafferty and Alex Kerfoot, while Wayne Simmonds slides in for his first game since February 1st in the place of the injured Noel Acciari on a fourth line with David Kampf and Zach Aston-Reese.

The atmosphere should be electric inside the split-crowd (realistically more 60/40 Leafs) Canadian Tire Centre as the Senators try to keep their dwindling playoff hopes alive and the Maple Leafs look to deliver a good effort for Murray in his return to Ottawa.

Head to Head: Senators vs. Maple Leafs

In the season-to-date statistics, the Leafs hold the advantage over the Senators in four out of five offensive categories and four out of five defensive categories.

Game Day Quotes

Sheldon Keefe on whether the Senators beating the Leafs in Toronto in the last meeting should be a motivating factor for his team:

That is part of it. We have a lot of respect for this team. Regardless of whether it is the last game or the last couple of seasons, they play us really hard. They have a lot of really good players and dangerous players.

We have to be at our best. More importantly, we just want to continue to build our game. We have had some really strong games here of late. We didn’t get the two points against Colorado, but against a really good team last night, we did a lot of good things to put ourselves in a position to win and close the game out.

You want to be able to build on that. It is another opportunity right away here on the road on a back-to-back. We would like to see our team continue to pile up good efforts. That will be the challenge tonight.

Keefe on inserting Justin Holl in the lineup and giving Mark Giordano and Erik Gustafsson the night off:

It is a good chance for us to give Gio a break here. He has played a lot of minutes this season — probably more than we anticipated because of how much we needed him at different times.

With it being back-to-back at this time of year and the depth that we have with so many healthy defensemen, we’re giving him a break.

Gustafsson is just the same. He played really well last night. I really liked his game, but we want to keep our guys involved here.

Hollsy had played well and didn’t deserve to come out when he did yesterday. We will get him in today and have some fresh people.

Keefe on the expectation for Matt Murray as he plays against his old team for the first time:

I want to see him continue to build. I think he has done a good job. His numbers don’t show up well here in the last couple of starts that he has had, but coming off of the injury, he didn’t play for a long period of time. There was a big gap between his first two starts. He is just kind of getting going.

We played him in back-to-back starts last week. I thought he really built some momentum through that. In the second half of his first game, you could really see him coming, so we wanted to give him the second start.

You are just looking for him to continue to build his game and get some more game reps. He hasn’t played a lot. It is a real chance for him to do that tonight regardless of who the opponent is.

… One thing I know about Matt Murray is that he is unflappable and extremely confident in who he is. That comes with his nature, and secondly, once you have won two Stanley Cups, I don’t think you care about much else that is going on.

Keefe on Auston Matthews’ goal-scoring starting to cook with four goals in his last five:

He has missed a bunch of goals earlier in the season that in previous years would be going in for him. They haven’t. Maybe there is a little more luck coming his way, but it is also coming through good process.

With the way that he is skating and the way that he is working, things start to fall your way when you focus a little less on the actual scoring and more on the details of your game, the pace of play, controlling play, and winning your shift.

When Auston Matthews is at his best, that is what he is doing. The goal is the thing that shows up in the highlights at the end of the night, but as much as Auston won the Rocket and the Hart last year and the goals stand out, to me, it is how he dominates play, how he wins shifts, and how he makes a difference in the game even when he is not scoring.

As we all know, if you get 20-30 shifts a game, you are not scoring on all of those, but you can make an impact on every single shift. When he is at his best, that is what he does. We have seen more of it of late.

Matt Murray on his approach to playing his old team for the first time:

You do your best to treat it like any other game. My focus is on that. They are a dangerous team. They are incredibly talented offensively. I think it is going to be a playoff-type atmosphere out there. We are going to have our hands full tonight for sure.

DJ Smith on the challenge against the Leafs:

They play the right way. They are well-coached. Their focus is clear. Everyone knows that they and Tampa are going to play each other in the first round. Who is going to get home ice? They are trying to get their game ready for that series.

They are not going to cheat and give you freebies. They don’t give up much. They have eight defensemen that they rotate. They are sitting out some pretty good players on the backend there. They are built to go.

We can’t think about that. We have to do what we do. We play hard in front of our crowd. Guys get excited about these kinds of games. It’ll be electric tonight. We’ll be ready when the puck drops.

Smith on whether his team draws confidence from its 6-2 win over Toronto back in late January:

That was so long ago. I hope they draw some confidence from it because confidence is good in any scenario. But we have talked about how anyone can beat anyone in this league. We have beat good teams. We have lost to teams that are way below us in the standings.

They are going to be a way different team tonight than they were then. We are a different team than we were then. We just have to be at our best. When we are at our best, we can beat anybody.

Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines

Forwards
#19 Calle Järnkrok – #34 Auston Matthews – #16 Mitch Marner
#58 Michael Bunting – #91 John Tavares – #88 William Nylander
#15 Alex Kerfoot – #28 Sam Lafferty – #74 Bobby McMann
#12 Zach Aston-Reese – #64 David Kämpf – #24 Wayne Simmonds

Defensemen
#44 Morgan Rielly – #78 TJ Brodie
#22 Jake McCabe – #2 Luke Schenn
#3 Justin Holl – #37 Timothy Liljegren

Goaltenders
Starter: #30 Matt Murray
#60 Joe Woll

Night off: Ilya Samsonov
Extras: Mark Giordano, Erik Gustafsson, Conor Timmins, Alex Steeves
Injured: Noel Acciari, Ryan O’Reilly, Nick Robertson, Jake Muzzin, Victor Mete

Ottawa Senators Projected Lines

Forwards
#7 Brady Tkachuk – #18 Tim Stutzle – #19 Drake Batherson
#12 Alex Debrincat – #17 Ridly Greig – #28 Claude Giroux
#61 Derick Brassard – #57 Shane Pinto – #77 Julien Gauthier
#45 Parker Kelly – #27 Dylan Gambrell – #16 Austin Watson

Defensemen
#6 Jakob Chychrun – #23 Travis Hamonic
#85 Jake Sanderson – #2 Artem Zub
#72 Thomas Chabot – #26 Erik Brannstrom

Goaltenders
Starter: #40 Mads Sogaard
#70 Kevin Mandolese

Injured: Cam Talbot, Josh Norris, Mathieu Joseph, Parker Kelly, Anton Forsberg

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NHL roundup: Hurricanes beat Flyers 6-4 for seventh straight win

Published

18 hours ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Martin Necas scored a go-ahead goal with 29 seconds left and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-4 on Tuesday night.

It was the seventh straight win for the Hurricanes, who also got goals from Jack Roslovic, Jordan Martinook, Eric Robinson and Jackson Blake. Seth Jarvis added an empty-net goal in the final seconds.

Necas typically saves his game-winners for overtime, with nine in his career, but he was able to take care of business in regulation with his team-best seventh goal of the season.

Travis Konecny scored two goals and had two assists for the Flyers. Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett also scored for Philadelphia.

Aleksei Kolosov made 28 saves for the Flyers, who trailed 2-1, 3-1 and 4-3 but kept coming back. Carolina’s Pyotr Kochetkov struggled in net allowing four goals on just 16 shots.

Elsewhere in the NHL on Tuesday:

—

SABRES 5 SENATORS 1

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Bowen Byram and Tage Thompson scored 16 seconds apart to open the third period, and Buffalo snapped a three-game skid with a win over Ottawa.

Byram scored twice, JJ Peterka had two goals and an assist and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 37 saves.

Ridly Greig converted his own rebound in cutting Buffalo’s lead to 2-1 with 7:31 left in the second period. Linus Ullmark made 29 saves in dropping to 1-4 in his past five starts.

Buffalo went up 3-1 on Byram’s second goal 21 seconds into the third period. The defenceman’s shot from inside the blue line sneaked through Ullmark, with the puck rolling down the goalie’s pad, dropping into the crease and trickling across the line. Thompson scored when he crashed the net, was knocked over by defender Jake Sanderson and was lying in the crease when Alex Tuch’s shot went in off his shoulder.

—

MAPLE LEAFS 4 BRUINS 0

TORONTO (AP) — Anthony Stolarz made 29 saves for his first shutout of the season in Toronto’s 4-0 victory over Boston.

Morgan Rielly had a goal and two assists as Toronto connected three times on the power play. William Nylander and Matthew Knies added a goal and an assist each. Mitch Marner had two assists of his own. Steven Lorentz rounded out the scoring into the empty net.

The Leafs played without captain Auston Matthews, who is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

Jeremy Swayman made 23 stops for Boston, which was coming off consecutive weekend shutouts of the Philadelphia Flyers and Seattle Kraken.

Toronto’s porous 31st-ranked power play scored for the second time in as many games at 8:44 of the second period when Rielly fired through a screen. Nylander banked in his team-leading 10th goal of the season on another man advantage 1:14 later for a 2-0 lead.

The Bruins entered the game 8-0-0 in the regular season against their Atlantic Division rival dating back to Jan. 14, 2023.

—

FLAMES 3 CANADIENS 2 (OT)

MONTREAL (AP) — Matt Coronato scored twice as Calgary came back to defeat Montreal in overtime.

Coronato tied the game with 2:46 remaining in regulation when he cruised into the slot and went off the post and in. He then buried the winning goal seven seconds into the extra period.

Connor Zary also scored for Calgary, which won its second game in seven outings. Dustin Wolf stopped 21 shots.

Joel Armia — with a short-handed goal — and Brendan Gallagher scored for Montreal (4-7-2). Armia also provided an assist, while Sam Montembeault made 32 saves as the Canadiens’ losing streak extended to four games.

Zary opened the scoring with his third 4:20 into the second period when he pounced on a loose puck in the slot and fired a shot past Montembeault.

Gallagher then slipped the puck between Wolf’s pads at 16:23 to level the score with his fifth of the season.

—

BLUES 3 LIGHTNING 2

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jordan Kyrou, Alexey Toropchenko and Oskar Sundqvist scored to help St. Louis beat Tampa Bay 3-2.

Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington made 21 saves for his 149th career win moving him past Jake Allen for second place in franchise history, just two wins behind Mike Liut’s 151.

Nick Perbix and Victor Hedman scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves for the Lightning who have lost three straight games.

Kyrou scored his fourth goal of the season 8:51 into the third period to give St. Louis a 3-1 lead.

Toropchenko scored his first goal of the season with 1:35 remaining in the second period to put St. Louis ahead 2-1 after Sundqvist tied the game with his first of the season 7:47 into the period.

—

ISLANDERS 4 PENGUINS 3 (SO)

NEW YORK (AP) — Bo Horvat scored the only goal in a shootout and New York rallied past Pittsburgh 4-3.

New York goalie Ilya Sorokin denied Rickard Rakell, Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang in the shootout and finished with 32 saves. Kyle Palmieri had a goal and an assist for the Islanders, who trailed 3-1 midway through the third period.

Simon Holmstrom and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored in the third for New York. Horvat had two assists.

Evgeni Malkin had a goal and an assist to lead Pittsburgh. Crosby got his 598th career goal, and Michael Bunting also scored. Rakell added two assists.

Alex Nedeljkovich stopped 23 shots for the Penguins, who have lost seven of nine. They won their previous two following a six-game skid.

—

KINGS 5 WILD 1

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Trevor Lewis scored twice, Kevin Fiala added another on the power play and Los Angeles beat Minnesota 5-1.

Warren Foegele and Quinton Byfield also scored for Los Angeles, which was playing the second night of a back-to-back after a 3-0 win in Nashville a night earlier. David Rittich made 23 saves for the Kings.

Fiala, who was traded to Los Angeles in 2022 by Minnesota for a first-round pick draft pick and defenceman Brock Faber, scored his seventh goal of the season. He now has three goals and six assists in his last seven games against the Wild.

Minnesota, which had won three in a row, opened the scoring in the second period on Zach Bogosian’s first goal of the season. Goaltender Filip Gustavsson stopped 23 shots for the Wild.

—

JETS 3 UTAH 0

WINNIPEG, Man. (AP) — Nino Niederreiter scored twice in his 900th NHL career game and Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves to help Winnipeg defeat Utah 3-0.

It was Hellebuyck’s second shutout of the season and 39th of this career.

Gabriel Vilardi also scored for the Jets. Adam Lowry assisted on both goals by Niederreiter.

Utah ended a run of picking up points in three consecutive games (1-0-2).

Karel Vejmelka stopped 25 shots for Utah in its second stop on a four-game road trip.

Jets winger Kyle Connor had his franchise-record, season-opening points streak end at 12 games.

—

AVALANCHE 6 KRAKEN 3

DENVER (AP) — Arturri Lehkonen scored the go-ahead goal on a power play in his season debut and Nathan MacKinnon had five assists as Colorado beat Seattle 6-3.

Mikko Rantanen added two goals for the Avalanche, who snapped a three-game losing streak. Ivan Ivan, Nikolai Kovalenko and Chris Wagner also scored for Colorado.

Cale Makar had two assists but the star defenceman barely played in the second half of the game and appeared to be slowed by an apparent injury during a brief shift.

MacKinnon and Makar extended their season-opening point streaks to 13 games.

Lehkonen played for the first time since off-season shoulder surgery.

Jared McCann, Jaden Schwartz and Brandon Montour scored for the Kraken.

—

CANUCKS 5 DUCKS 1

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Brock Boeser, Danton Heinen and Kiefer Sherwood had a goal and an assist apiece, and Quinn Hughes recorded his 300th career assist in Vancouver’s victory over Anaheim.

Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson also scored and Hughes had three assists for the Canucks, who have won six of eight. Kevin Lankinen made 21 saves in Vancouver’s sixth consecutive win over the Ducks.

Olen Zellweger scored a power-play goal early in the first period for Anaheim, which has lost seven of nine. Lukas Dostal stopped 31 shots.

Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko took shots from teammates again after the morning skate, and he could return to practice this week. The Southern California native and 2023-24 Vezina Trophy finalist hasn’t played this season due to a knee injury incurred late last season.

—

SHARKS 2 BLUE JACKETS 1 (OT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Alex Wennberg scored 3:11 into overtime and San Jose celebrated the return of No. 1 overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini with a win over Columbus.

Defenceman Jack Thompson scored his first career goal for the Sharks (4-8-2), who entered the night with the worst record in the NHL. San Jose has won four of five.

Celebrini, the top pick in the 2024 NHL draft, missed 12 games with a hip injury he sustained in the season opener Oct. 10 — an injury first incurred during the pre-season. Celebrini didn’t score and missed a shot early in overtime.

San Jose goalie Vitek Vanacek was fantastic in net, making 49 saves.

Blue Jackets right wing Kirill Marchenko scored for the second consecutive game. Columbus (5-6-1) has lost three straight.

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Canada’s Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Routliffe pick up second win at WTA Finals

Published

2 days ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.

The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.

The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.

Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.

Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.

The final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.

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Allen nets shutout as Devils burn Oilers 3-0

Published

2 days ago

November 4, 2024

Anne Joseph

EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.

Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.

The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.

Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.

TAKEAWAYS

Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.

Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.

KEY MOMENT

New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.

KEY RETURN?

Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.

OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN

The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.

The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.

UP NEXT

Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.

Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

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