Preview: Maple Leafs at Golden Knights, Thu Oct 8 (10:00 PM ET) Discussion

Puck drop: 10:00 PM ET / 7:00 PM PT at T-Mobile Arena (Leafs on the road). Season series is 0–0, and the second meeting is Dec 12 in Toronto (NHL API).

What's confirmed and what isn't. Everything in the lineup tables is a projection, not an official lineup.

• Leafs lines: Daily Faceoff (DFO) credits David Alter, a beat reporter, and has them updated Oct 8.
• Leafs goalie: DFO lists Bobrovsky as likely, because he was first in the crease at morning skate (Alter via DFO). That is not an official announcement.
• Vegas goalie: DFO's starting-goalie board shows Adin Hill as confirmed (Jesse Granger, beat reporter). DFO's Vegas lines page still lists Carter Hart first, so treat Hill as the starter.

Lines: what to watch

• Top-six shuffle. DFO has Marchenko–Matthews–Roslovic and Cowan–Tavares–Nylander. That splits Matthews and Nylander, who were two of the top three Leafs forwards by ice time in Tuesday's 5–4 OT win over Nashville. Matthews played 25:09, Nylander 22:48 and Marchenko 21:35 (boxscore). Ice time alone doesn't prove who played with whom, so the Matthews–Nylander link is my inference.
• Source disagreement. The independent blog Inside The Rink projects the same top line but puts McKenna with Tavares and Nylander, and Cowan on the third line with Paul and Sissons. DFO has it the other way around, so Cowan vs. McKenna on the second line is the one to check at warmups. (I'm using that page only for lines. It also carries betting content, which I'm leaving out.)
• Fourth line and D. Duhaime–Blueger–Groulx and McCabe–Tanev, Rielly–Raddysh, Ekman-Larsson–Stecher are DFO's projection. On Oct 6, Raddysh led all Leafs D at 25:51 and Rielly was at 20:39, so the pairings and the power play both lean on Raddysh.
• Out: Merzlikins (IR, DFO says 3–5 months), Domi (added to LTIR) and Dakota Joshua (week-to-week, core injury). All three come from DFO news blurbs dated Sep 28–30. Per PuckPedia figures on DFO, the Leafs have 22 of 23 roster spots filled and $7.0M of current cap space. Those missing bodies are why Groulx and Duhaime are in the lineup.

Storylines

Goaltending. Bobrovsky is 0–2 with a .887 SV% and 3.06 GAA on 53 shots, and Stolarz is 2–0 with a .904 SV% (NHL API). Those are two-game samples. Hill is 1–0 with a .900 SV% (DFO).

Special teams. Per the NHL API:

| | PP | PK | GF/GP | GA/GP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leafs | 21.4% (17th) | 90.9% (5th) | 2.75 | 2.75 |
| Vegas | 31.3% (9th) | 83.3% (13th) | 4.25 | 2.50 |

DFO's own unit rankings, which are a DFO rating and not xG, are a separate source. They rate Vegas's first power-play unit 3rd and its first PK unit 31st. They rate Toronto's first PP unit 26th and its second PK pair 4th. Small samples apply here too. Toronto went 1-for-3 on the power play against Nashville, with Nylander scoring, and won 64% of faceoffs. Tavares won 16 of 17 (team stats).

Marner. Inside The Rink notes that Mitch Marner faces his former team tonight. DFO has him on Vegas's second line with Karlsson and Howden, on the first power-play unit and on the first PK unit. Expect Toronto's matchup choices to show whether that line draws Matthews or Tavares.

Form. The Leafs are 2–2–0, with losses to Montreal and Ottawa and wins over the Islanders and Nashville. Vegas is 3–1–0 with a goal differential of +7 (standings). Toronto's next two games are in Colorado on Oct 10 and Utah on Oct 13.

Questions for the thread

1. Do you split Matthews and Nylander for a full game, or is this a one-night look to get more from the Tavares line?
2. Bobrovsky is 0–2 and Stolarz is 2–0. Is Bobrovsky the right goalie to start on the road at Vegas?

Sources: NHL API (official stats), Daily Faceoff (lineup and goalie projections, cap data credited to PuckPedia), Inside The Rink (independent blog). No xG data was available.