Home Leafs News Game Day Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Minnesota Wild – Game #33 Preview, Projected Lines...

Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Minnesota Wild – Game #33 Preview, Projected Lines & TV Info

Dec 14, 2017

Puck Drop: 8:00 p.m. EST | Arena: Xcel Energy Center | TV: SN Ontario | Radio: TSN 1050

Game Day Quotes

Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau on his history with the Leafs:

Born in Toronto, I got to watch them since TV was on… early 1960s with Ward Cornell right through to today. The Leafs are an institution in Canada. They’re still a team I watch every chance I get to this day. They were my favourite team growing up. They’re my favourite team when it doesn’t mean anything to us. I think their history is proud and great. I don’t think Canadian hockey would be anywhere near what it is today without the Maple Leafs.

Boudreau on whether he’s surprised by how well Frederik Andersen is playing under the starter’s workload in Toronto:

Not at all. I remember telling Mike and Lou at the draft when they traded for him, “You guys don’t know it yet, but you’ve got a real winner there.” I think Freddy is great. He’s had a couple of rough starts at the beginning of the seasons in Toronto, but overall, he’s a guy you can count on. He’s such a big, strong body. He can play 60-65 games.

Boudreau on team’s strong play since the last time the two teams met (a 4-2 Leafs win):

After that game, it seemed to get us going. We played a good game. We thought we could’ve had a better result, but we played better the next night. I think since that date we are like 10-4-1. It was a good jumpstart for us.

Mike Babcock on tonight’s opponent:

They’re a good team. They’re going to play hard. There’s not going to be a lot of room. There wasn’t many scoring chances the first time we played them. We feel we’ve got to spend way more time in the offensive zone than we have and we’ve got to play harder and play heavier. That’s on us to do a better job in that area.

Babcock on why the team has been struggling to generate o-zone time of late:

Well, I think you go through teams and they play us hard, which is understandable. I think we’ve got to play harder. We’ve got to execute. There’s a number of things; faceoffs, execution in d-zone, speed through the neutral zone, hanging onto the puck in the o-zone. I don’t know which one of those you want to talk to about, but I’ve only got so much time before the meal.

Babcock on if he’s tempted to play Morgan Rielly more than he is:

What we try to do is we try to play him with [Hainsey] in the right situations each night to help us win. The success I’ve had in the past in the league is when you’ve got everybody important on your team and you don’t kill a few people and they run out of gas. That’s what we try to do. We try to roll them out the door, but that sheet that you guys monitor — on the road, it’s no good. Just so you know, a hundred percent. So, I don’t monitor the thing, or care. But, every once in a while I look because after 10 games I say, “Oh, how much ice time are you getting?” I just watch the game and if you’re playing good, you get to play more.

Babcock on if the team tracks their own ice time statistics:

No. We’ve done it a number of times, especially when I was in Detroit because It’d drive me crazy. Every once in a while we do a survey of what’s going on. The other night after the first period, it was so far off, at the end of the game it didn’t much matter.

Mitch Marner on what he expects from Minnesota tonight:

They’ve got active Dmen that can shoot the puck, especially off the rush and on the points, so we’ve got to make sure we’re getting in lanes quick, hard, and limiting their opportunities. They’ve got a lot of guys down the middle that can win draws and big faceoffs. So we’ve got to be ready on the powerplay as well to win those.

Mitch Marner on the lack of o-zone time, declining shot share, and the-over reliance on Frederik Andersen:

We’re relying on [Andersen] to save our butts in most of our games. Like I said, we want to get more o-zone play. I think we haven’t been doing that as of late. It’s just about getting it in and playing hard down low.

We can’t be a team that sits back. We have to be a team that pushes forward. We’re a young team. We’ve got a lot of legs in here. I think we’ve got to start using them more.

Dominic Moore on if Minnesota will present the same challenge tonight that they have in the past:

I think they’re a different team than they’ve been over the years now. I think they’ve got some mobile defensemen here. Got to keep an eye on them jumping up into the rush. For the most part, though, we’re focused on our game and what we need to do.

Wild defenceman Jonas Brodin on the Leafs:

They have some young skilled guys and some speed, so we have to play quite tight on them. Get pucks to the net, keep the forecheck going, and keep shooting the puck. I think that’s going to be a big key today.

Matchup Stats

	TOR	MIN
Record	20-11-1	16-11-3
GF/g	3.31 (5th)	2.90 (19th)
GA/g	2.84 (11th)	2.90 (14th)
PP%	22.2% (5th)	21.8% (6th)
PK%	82.0% (13th)	82.3% (12th)
Shots/g	30.3 (23rd)	28.6 (31st)
Shots Against/g	34.4 (29th)	32.0 (21st)
5v5 CF%	49.4% (18th)	46.3% (30th)
5v5 SV%	.929 (6th)	.924 (13th)
5v5 SH%	9.80% (1st)	7.4% (21st)