The floundering Toronto Maple Leafs will hope to find some stability away from home as they continue their six-game road trip with a Wednesday night bout against a Columbus Blue Jackets team that bested them six days prior.
An Adam Fantilli overtime goal marked their second loss to the Blue Jackets of the young season. The Leafs followed it up with a lackluster 5-2 defeat to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night. The result leaves them at the bottom of the Eastern Conference following Buffalo’s win on Sunday, having lost seven of their last eight games.
“Obviously, getting some people back in the lineup, that definitely is going to help,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said when asked how the team would get out of its rut. “But until we decide to dig in and play the right way for 60 minutes on a consistent basis, it’s going to be hard to pull yourself out of anything.”
Toronto will be relieved not to have lost defenseman Jake McCabe on the back end after he left the game on Saturday due to taking a puck to the face in the second period. He was back at practice on Tuesday.
“It’s part of my DNA to stick around,” McCabe said.
Star forwards Auston Matthews (lower body) and Matthew Knies (lower body) along with Nicolas Roy (upper body) are back at practice and are possibilities to draw into the lineup on Wednesday, with Berube labeling them as “close to returning.”
In goaltender Anthony Stolarz’s extended absence due to an upper-body injury, the task will likely fall to Joseph Woll to halt the Leafs’ losing skid.
The Blue Jackets return to town after a bumpy four-game road trip of their own, with just the win over Toronto to show for it. Their last outing was a 5-1 thumping at the hands of the Washington Capitals on Monday night.
Jakob Chychrun led the way in scoring, ripping two goals past a struggling Elvis Merzlikins, who is currently on pace for a fourth consecutive season with a save percentage below .900.
“We played like crap all around,” head coach Dean Evason put it bluntly after the game. “We played poorly. We tried in spurts, and certainly early in the game, but our overall game we cannot be happy with.”
The Blue Jackets’ more frequent scenario of late has been an abundance of blown leads, particularly late in the game. Their 4-3 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday marked their seventh surrendered third-period lead of the season. Five of those have been multi-goal leads, though Evason considers the trend little more than a piece of trivia.
“I know you guys are focused on it a little bit,” Evason said of the media after the loss to Detroit. “I’m not focused on it. I’m focused, our staff is more focused, on just playing the right way, consistently, throughout the whole game. We’re not going to concentrate on one period. We’re looking for consistency in all periods.”
Where the Leafs stand to get players back from injury, the Jackets might enter the game without their two top talents. Team points leader Kirill Marchenko (22 points in 22 games) pulled out before the Monday game with muscle tightness, while defensive stalwart Zach Werenski sustained an upper-body injury against the Capitals. Winger Mathieu Olivier (upper body) also left the game injured before the second period began.
–Field Level Media
