Toronto Meets the Red Wings in Detroit

Tonight’s matchup between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings will be a game between two teams seemingly headed in very different directions. The Leafs appear to have been reinvigorated under new head coach Sheldon Keefe, going 2-and-0 in his tenure so far. The Red Wings, on the other hand, have lost their last six games, four of those in regulation. If there’s a team Toronto was hoping to face in order to keep Keefe’s perfect, albeit short, streak intact, Detroit would be the one.

Jonathan Bernier is expected to get the start in goal for Detroit tonight. Bernier allowed four goals on 33 shots in the Red Wings' loss in New Jersey on Saturday and has lost three consecutive games while allowing a combined 11 goals on 97 shots (.887 SV%). The Red Wings plan to put highly-touted prospect Filip Zadina on a powerplay the unit with Dylan Larkin, Robby Fabbri, Tyler Bertuzzi and Dennis Cholowski, something the 20-year-old says he’s very much looking forward to. With Anthony Mantha out for at least two weeks with a lower-body injury suffered in the game against New Jersey, Zadina could find himself on the PP unit for a while if he can be successful. Defenseman Dylan McIlrath cleared waivers and remains with Detroit. He’s expected to be in the lineup against Toronto as fellow blueliner Mike Green is not quite ready to return. 

As for Toronto, they’ll be going with Freddie Andersen, with recently called-up netminder Michael Hutchinson not expected to see action until this weekend at the earliest. As for the lineup, it won’t change a whole lot from the team’s 5-3 win over Colorado on the weekend, except Nic Petan will fill in on the third line for Alex Kerfoot, who has been suspended, and Dmytro Timashov will draw back in to fill in the empty spot on the fourth line. Timoshov was a healthy scratch against the Avs. Ultimately, there isn’t much point in changing what you don’t have to change if it’s working.

The last time the two teams met in Detroit was in early October. The Leafs won 5-2

Projected Lineups

Detroit

Bertuzzi-Larkin-Fabbri
Helm-Filppula-Zadina
Glendening-Neilsen-Athanasiou
Hirose-Ehn-Perlini

Nemeth-Hronek
Cholowski- McIlrath
Ericsson-Bowey

Bernier
Howard

Toronto

Johnsson-Matthews-Nylander
Mikheyev-Tavares-Hyman
Petan-Spezza-Kapanen
Engvall-Gauthier-Timashov

Rielly-Ceci
Muzzin-Holl
Dermott-Barrie

Andersen
Hutchinson