2. Know Your Enemy
The Leafs halted a three-game slump with a 4-3 overtime win against the Sabres in their last outing on Saturday.
John Tavares splayed the hero for Toronto, scoring his 499th career tally 1:28 into extra time at home, just a day after the Leafs were beaten by the Sabres 5-3 in Buffalo.
Nicolas Robertson, Matias Maccelli and Dakota Joshua also scored for the Leafs, who are now 4-4-1 on the season – including 4-2-1 at the friendly confines of Scotiabank Arena.
Toronto was without forward William Nylander Saturday, their leading scorer with three goals and 14 points in seven games, who suffered a lower-body injury in the loss to Buffalo. It’s unknown if he will suit up tonight against the Flames but he did practice with the team Monday.
Cayden Primeau made 23 saves in the win to improve to 2-0 on the campaign, backed up by Dennis Hildeby who was called up from the AHL’s Toronto Marlies to give Anthony Stolarz a night off.
Stolarz is 2-4-1, has played the majority of minutes for the Leafs this season with Joseph Woll away from the team since Sept. 23 due to personal reasons. Woll returned to practice Monday with the Leafs but isn’t elibile to play until Nov. 1 at the earliest.
Also notable the Leafs are without former Flame Chris Tanev and forward Scott Laughton, both sidelined due to injuries and not expected to return soon, while another former Flame, Calle Jarnkrok, is day-to-day with an injury.
Tonight, though, Toronto – like the Flames – will look for their second straight win and try to build some momentum and climb the Eastern Conference standings.
“Gritty win is kind of how I look at it,” Toronto coach Craig Berube told NHL.com after the win over Buffalo. “The difference for me tonight is we were better defending the odd-man rushes. … We were above things all night. It was a low-event game. You play teams like that, you have to make sure you are not giving those freebies up and we didn’t do that.
“Our guys played hard. I liked the jam they played with, physical, couple nice hits, a little bit (ticked) off.”
