zeke
Well-known member
The Leafs are coming off a couple of emotional highs with that HNIC comeback blowout vs the Habs and solid follow up win over the Lightning.
Now they're faced with a midjanuary midweek nothingburger against the nonentity that is the columbus blue jackets. Classic letdown game type opportunity here. The Leafs are rightly starting Hildeby in this one after a couple big wins by Woll, but that makes it even riskier.
The Blue Jackets are kinda "hot" going 10-3-2 over their last 15, but the reality is that that's come against a very weak sked, 2 of those wins were in the shootout, they've lost their last two games vs the mediocre NY teams, and they're pretty injured right now, headlined by their breakout #1C Monahan. They do have some very nice young talent tho in Marchenko Voronkov Fantilli Johnson, and Werenski is ahving a Norris quality year, so if the leafs don't show up tonight they could easily get punished.
So tonight is a very good test of whether the Leafs can be Professionals and just take care of business even though it's hard to drum up any emotion at all in this one.
Both lineups are in flux due to injuries, but most likely we see the same lines as both teams iced last game:
Now they're faced with a midjanuary midweek nothingburger against the nonentity that is the columbus blue jackets. Classic letdown game type opportunity here. The Leafs are rightly starting Hildeby in this one after a couple big wins by Woll, but that makes it even riskier.
The Blue Jackets are kinda "hot" going 10-3-2 over their last 15, but the reality is that that's come against a very weak sked, 2 of those wins were in the shootout, they've lost their last two games vs the mediocre NY teams, and they're pretty injured right now, headlined by their breakout #1C Monahan. They do have some very nice young talent tho in Marchenko Voronkov Fantilli Johnson, and Werenski is ahving a Norris quality year, so if the leafs don't show up tonight they could easily get punished.
So tonight is a very good test of whether the Leafs can be Professionals and just take care of business even though it's hard to drum up any emotion at all in this one.
Both lineups are in flux due to injuries, but most likely we see the same lines as both teams iced last game:
