Toronto Maple Leafs Without Jake Muzzin vs Senators

The Toronto Maple Leafs will kick of a very challenging portion of their schedule tonight against the Ottawa Senators.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will play six games in the next nine days, with two back-to-backs, and never more than one day off at a time.

It’s a crazy way to finish the season, but it’s been a pretty crazy season, so what can you do?

The Leafs are coming off a decisive victory against the Washington Capitals on Thursday, and have beaten Ottawa twice in a row, since losing to them to open the season back in October.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Ottawa Senators

It’s been a rough season for the Senators, as many, including myself, expected them to take a turn towards competitiveness this season.

Unfortunately, they are seventh last, which is about the worst you can be – not bad enough to get the top pick, and not good enough to make the playoffs.  The Senators might win the lottery, but otherwise it’s a wasted year.

Then again, they could (should) tank the rest of the year and ensure a better selection in June.

It’s really too bad that they blew their first round picks in 2016 and 2017, and have now used up Brady Tkachuk’s ECL, and only have one year left on Tim Stutzle’s.

Having picked tenth last year, and likely to have a similar spot this year, it’s worth asking if anyone running that team knows what they are doing?  It’s just dumb to rush your top guys, then use their ELC deals to be too good to continue to draft high – it’s basically the worst thing you could do.

Anyways, back to the Toronto Maple Leafs:

Jake Muzzin will miss both games this weekend , although the team says this isn’t related to the concussion that he missed time with earlier.

A year ago, a Muzzin injury would seem to be a major blow to the team, but with the emergence of Timothy Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin, along with the acquisitions of Mark Giordano and Ilya Lyubushkin, it’s not such a big deal now.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have eight excellent defenseman, every single one of which you could dress in your top four without a single worry.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the goalie situation.  Erik Kallgren gets the call tonight, and who knows what you’re going to get from him at this point?

I guess he hasn’t been too bad, all things considered. After the way the Leafs looked against Washington, I don’t think it really matters who is in net tonight, since if they keep that up, no one will be able to stop them.