Leafs Vs. Sens, Battle Of Ontario, Pt 1

The Toronto Maple Leafs resume their pursuit to get back into the playoff race on Saturday at Scotiabank Arena against the Ottawa Senators. The Sens are one of the six teams they have to climb over to get into an Eastern Conference playoff spot, and in the first Battle of Ontario, the club will have a new presence behind the bench, as former Leaf Steve Sullivan has been added to Craig Berube’s staff to help revive the anemic Toronto power play.

TSN’s Darren Dreger indicated that Sullivan will share responsibilities with assistant coach Derek Lalonde while he gets up to speed, but it is clear that the Leafs need the man advantage to get going if they have any hope of winning games and climbing the standings.

The club took the morning skate on Saturday, and just before the main group took to the ice, injured defensemen Brandon Carlo and Dakota Mermis skated. Carlo last played on November 13 against Los Angeles and had surgery on his foot in early December after waiting to see if the injury would heal without a procedure. The time frame indicated after the surgery was four weeks, so it is possible that he could be back in the lineup in the next week to 10 days.

The sooner the better for the Leafs, who have regularly been playing blueliners like Philippe Myers and Simon Benoit higher in the lineup, which has been to the club’s detriment. Once Carlo is back, he could return on the right side with Morgan Rielly and the Leafs could have a solid six for the first time in nearly two months, with Chris Tanev playing on the right side with Jake McCabe, and a potentially excellent bottom pairing of Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Troy Stecher.

Berube kept the same lineup he used in the 6-3 victory over Pittsburgh on Tuesday, which is understandable based on that group winning, but Myers playing with Rielly is a head-scratcher instead of Benoit or Henry Thrun. Up front, rookie Easton Cowan is expected to be a healthy scratch for the third straight game. The 20-year-old has played well, but has made the occasional rookie mistake and could be fatigued after a long stretch of games.

All of that being the case, healthy-scratching the rookie is a blunder on the part of the Leafs. The youngster has to play, either in the NHL or with the AHL Marlies. If he is a healthy scratch with the Leafs, he should be sent down to play a primary role down on the farm.

Joseph Woll will make the start for Toronto, while Linus Ullmark will get the start for Ottawa.

At the World Junior Championships in Minnesota, Leafs defensive prospect Ben Danford had an impressive debut for Canada. The 19-year-old assisted on Michael Hage’s first period goal in the Canadian’s 7-5 victory over Czechia, and played 17:43 in the win.