Red Wings-Maple Leafs no-morning-skate news round-up

The Detroit Red Wings host the Toronto Maple Leafs this evening (7:00 PM EST on FSD/Sportsnet/97.1 FM).

Toronto has won 9 of its past 11 games, but the Leafs dropped a 5-3 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday; the Red Wings defeated the Nashville Predators on Saturday night, but the Wings need to be aware of Auston Matthews (who Terry Koshan reports has a 40% shooting percentage against Detroit) and company as the Leafs will bring their speed game to Detroit.

Neither team held a morning skate (Toronto got into town around 1 AM and Detroit didn’t return home until 2 AM) so, to tide you over:

AWood40 posted a 10-minute, annotated clip of last night’s Wings-Preds game…

And Sportsnet posted a 5-minute Pens-Leafs highlight clip:

The Red Wings also posted a 3:18 “On the Forecheck” video in which Carly Johnston and Manny Legace set up this week’s action:

The Toronto Sun’s Terry Koshan offered this estimate of the Leafs’ probable lineup against Detroit…

MAPLE LEAFS LINES

LW-C-RW

Zach Hyman-Auston Matthews-William Nylander

Patrick Marleau-Nazem Kadri-Mitch Marner

James van Riemsdyk-Tyler Bozak-Connor Brown

Leo Komarov-Dominic Moore-Kasperi Kapanen

Defence pairs

Jake Gardiner-Nikita Zaitsev

Morgan Rielly-Ron Hainsey

Travis Dermott-Roman Polak

Goaltenders

Curtis McElhinney

Frederik Andersen

The Red Wings’ lineup should be similar to Saturday’s, but we won’t know for sure until the coaches speak with the media sometime between 4:30 and 5 PM, and it’s possible that Blashill won’t reveal his lineup until warm-ups:

There’s been no update on Mike green (upper-body injury), but I’d be surprised if he plays before Tuesday.

Among TorontoMapleLeafs.com’s Adam Proteau’s “Five Takeaways” from last night’s Leaf game:

5. Defensive miscues pile up, prove to be Leafs’ undoing in third. Despite their win streak, Toronto hasn’t been playing ideal defensive hockey, and that came back to haunt them against the deep and potent Penguins in the third period: Pittsburgh blueliner Olli Maata put his team ahead for good at the 7:56 mark of the period on a slap shot that went through traffic and past Andersen, who didn’t see it coming at all; and Rust provided the insurance marker with 3:24 left in regulation to secure the Penguins’ 11th consecutive home victory.

More often than not in their hot streak, the Leafs have been outshot by their opponents, but have emerged with wins because of Andersen’s superb play and opportunistic showings in the offensive zone. But on this occasion – with the Pens outshooting them 39-32 on the night – Andersen couldn’t bail them out and their offense didn’t have enough in the tank to keep running-and-gunning with Sidney Crosby & Co. The Buds will get the chance to right the ship right away, as they head to Detroit to take on the Red Wings Sunday night, but they’ll need to be more structured and disciplined in their own end if they’re going to get back to the win column.

Here’s Babs…

 

In the FYI department, part 1, from Elias Sports:

Mrazek remains perfect against the Predators

Red Wings goaltender Petr Mrazek, who allowed seven goals in his last appearance (Feb. 9 against the Islanders), bounced back from that bad game with a 3–1 win at Nashville on Saturday. Mrazek has won all six games he’s played against the Predators in his NHL career, limiting Nashville to a total of 12 goals. Mrazek’s win total versus the Predators matches his career high against any NHL team. He’s also recorded six wins against the Hurricanes and the Islanders.

And in the free advertising department:

 

 

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.