Preview of the game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Los Angeles Kings

Toronto Maple Leafs @ Los Angeles Kings
7:00 p.m. at Crypto.com Arena
Watch on: NHLN, CBC, SN1, BSW
Opponent site: crown jewels

The Leafs’ last game was an away game on October 27 against the San Jose Sharks, which the Leafs lost by a score of 4-3. The Leafs are 4-3-1 so far.

The Los Angeles Kings last played at home Oct. 27 against the Winnipeg Jets. The Kings lost by a score of 6-4, and their current league record is 4-5-0.

Their

The Los Angeles Kings are coming off a rebuild/retooling (as they want to call it) after their two Stanley Cup championships. We will still see veterans Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar, Alex Edler and Jonathan Quick, but they will be joined by emerging team stars Brandt Clarke, Sean Durzi and Trevor Moore.

They win most of their away games (3) and have only one home win. The losses were significant – 4-1 (SEA), 6-1 (PIT) – and the wins were all within a goal, including overtime and a shootout. If the Leafs can take a solid lead early, the game should be theirs. It is also an afternoon game for the Kings starting at 4:00 p.m. local time, which will start the Leafs at their usual time of 7:00 p.m. in Toronto. Sometimes a small change like this can tip the balance in favor of visitors.

If you’re into the “former Leafs vs. Leafs score” trope, the Kings have three former Leafs players/picks in Trevor Moore, Carl Grundström and Sean Durzi.

Lines

Source: Helene St. James via Daily Faceoff

Adrian Kempe – Anze Kopitar – Gabriel Vilardi
Trevor Moore – Phillip Danault – Viktor Arvidsson
Carl Grundström – Blake Lizotte – Kevin Fiala
Brendan Lemieux – Jaret Anderson-Dolan – Arthur Kaliyev

Mikey Anderson – Drew Doughty
Sean Durzi – Matt Roy
Alexander Edler – Brandt Clarke

Quick Jonathan

We

Of course, other teams like the Avalanche, Lightning and Panthers have similar records to the Leafs and we don’t hear the same complaints about their records, but I don’t care. I am not a fan of these teams. Yes, the Leafs’ record right now is very similar to last season which was pretty good overall, but I live in the present and just want to win more games and do it better.

The Leafs had a great move recently when they took on Nick Robertson along with John Tavares and William Nylander, but there’s still something missing from the top line. It seems the Leafs’ response to that is to wait and they’ll figure things out for themselves.

Losing to teams like the Canadiens, Coyotes and Sharks has people down, but with this Kings team on the rise, we should expect the Leafs to play better tonight against a team that has expectations.

The black ‘backwards’ jerseys are on deck tonight, which I’m sure will lead to plenty of close-ups of Justin Bieber in his sequel.

Lines

Michael Bunting – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
Nick Robertson – John Tavares – William Nylander
Pierre Engvall – Alex Kerfoot – Calle Järnkrok
Zach Aston-Reese – David Kampf – Denis Malgin

Morgan Rielly – TJ Brodie
Rasmus Sandin – Justin Holl
Mark Giordano – Filip Kral

Ilya Samsonov

The game

It’s not two equal teams, and if I had to make a prediction, I’d say we’ll see nine goals scored in this game, the Leafs will win, but I can’t tell if it’ll be a 5-4 rodent of nails, or a 7-2 shot.