The Toronto Maple Leafs begin a stretch that will go a long ways towards determining their postseason fate on Saturday, as the club takes on the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre. The contest against their traditional rival is the first of a six-game road trip that will also have them face Columbus, Washington, Pittsburgh, Florida, and Carolina; all Eastern Conference foes.
The Leafs are currently at .500 (9-9-3), in spite of playing the most home games of any NHL team (15). Toronto did not take advantage of playing more than one-third of their home games in the first six weeks of the season, going 8-4-3, which included a 5-2 win over the Canadiens in the home opener on October 8. They fared even worse away from Scotiabank Arena, going 1-5-0 on the road and will need to play over .500 hockey to stay within range in the East playoff race.
Toronto remains injury-depleted, with Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies, Chris Tanev, Brandon Carlo, Nicolas Roy, and Anthony Stolarz unavailable to start the road trip. Matthews and Knies practiced with the club at the Ford Performance Centre on Friday, and it is possible that they could be back for the rematch with the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Wednesday.
The remainder of the injured players are not close to returning, and could be out for the majority of the 12-day road swing, which means that head coach Craig Berube will have to rely on his skeleton crew to go at least .500 in the half-dozen games to keep the club within range. Montreal is equally debilitated with injuries, as Kirby Dach, Alex Newhook, Kaiden Guhle, and Patrik Laine are all out long-term, and after starting out red-hot at 9-3-0, the Habs have come back to earth losing seven of their last eight (1-4-3).
The only lineup change on Saturday will be Sammy Blais, who was placed on waivers by Montreal last month, in place of rookie Jacob Quillan. Joseph Woll will make his fourth straight start and will likely get the majority of the work over the next two weeks with only one set of back-to-back games on the road swing.
Jakub Dobes (6-2-3, 2.96 GAA, .892 save %) will start for Montreal and Florian Xhekaj will make his NHL debut against the Leafs.
