For the second time this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs will battle with former coach Sheldon Keefe’s New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center. The Leafs won the first matchup 4-2 on October 10th.
As the Leafs are now a third of the way through the 82-game regular season, this matchup presents an interesting opportunity to analyze their results under head coach Craig Berube, compared to last season under Keefe.
It’s also an interesting time to take a deep dive into Keefe’s work with the Devils, who rank one spot above the Leafs with a .633 point percentage this season.
I’ll detail the relevant game notes, as well as outline my favourite betting angles below.
Maple Leafs vs Devils Odds
- Maple Leafs Moneyline Odds: +110
- Devils Moneyline Odds: -130
- Puck Line Odds: Maple Leafs +1.5 (-220), Devils -1.5 (+180)
- Game Total: 6 goals (over -120, under +100)
Toronto Maple Leafs
The Leafs will look to respond to a pair of disappointing losses versus the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins. While those were games you’d like to see a supposed contender win, neither performance was anything to be overly concerned about looking at their larger body of work.
In the opening 27 games of Berube’s tenure, the Leafs are 16-9-2 with a +9 goal differential. They have allowed only 2.63 goals against, but have generated just 2.96 goals for per game.
Through 27 games last season the Leafs were 15-6-6, with a +6 goal differential. They allowed 3.30 goals against per game in that span, but generated 3.52 goals per game.
It was thought that Berube would preach accountability in all three zones, and that the Leafs would ideally become a more difficult team to play against this season. While they have allowed less goals against, it is clear they are receiving far superior goaltending compared to last season. Chris Tanev has also been one of the league’s shutdown defenders, and was obviously not around during Keefe’s tenure.
The flip-side of that is that the Leafs have played through a number of key injuries this season, which has hurt their offensive upside during Berube’s tenure. There’s an argument to be made that improved offensive play come the postseason is required more so than defensive improvement, and at this point we don’t really know if Toronto will be a better offensive team this season or not.
Jake McCabe has been ruled out of Tuesday’s game, while Max Domi is considered a game-time decision.
Anthony Stolarz has been confirmed as the Leafs starting goaltender. He holds a .924 save % and 2.22 GAA in 15 games played this season.
New Jersey Devils
Regardless of who took over the head coaching position in New Jersey, the team was always destined for a considerable improvement upon last season’s 38-39-5 finish. The Devils suffered through some of the NHL’s worst goaltending in 2023-24, as well as some horrid luck with injuries.
The addition of Jacob Markstrom was expected to shore up the goaltending situation relative to last season. On top of having a healthy Dougie Hamilton, the Devils brought in proven NHL defenders in Brett Pesce, Brenden Dillon and Johnathan Kovacevic to solidify the blue-line. Stefan Noesen and Paul Cotter looked to be savvy pickups to bolster their offensive depth, and have been effective thus far in combining for 20 goals.
Oddsmakers tabbed Keefe as the preseason favourite to win the Jack Adams Award based on the idea that a significant improvement on last season’s total of 81 points was highly probable.
While Keefe is working with one of the NHL’s most well-rounded rosters, he deserves lots of credit for the Devils strong start to the season. They are clearly playing a more accountable game defensively compared to last season, but it has not come at the sacrifice of strong production.
The Devils have allowed 2.73 goals against per game this season, which ranks one spot below the Leafs in sixth in the league. Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen have combined for a save percentage of .896, compared to the Leafs team save percentage of .908.
Over the last ten games the Devils have allowed just 2.84 xGA/60, while ranking first with 4.03 xGF/60. Their +20 goal differential this season is the sixth best mark in the league.
Jack Hughes defensive play has improved significantly this season under Keefe. Hughes holds a 3.1 xDef rating (Per Evolving Hockey). In 218.5 minutes together Hughes’ current line alongside Jesper Bratt and Ondrej Palat holds a 61.1% actual goal percentage, and allowed just seven goals against.
Jacob Markstrom has been confirmed as the Devils starting goaltender in this matchup. He has played to a .907 save % and 2.51 GAA in 20 games played this season.
Best Bets for Leafs vs Devils
This showdown with Keefe’s Devils’ comes at an interesting time for the Leafs. After a number of weeks where it started to feel like this season may really be different, their recent play has been less convincing. The players on the Leafs’ IR provide a fairly legitimate excuse, but it does seem safe to say that the Devils are the team in better form entering this matchup.
At their best we have seen Berube’s group play a strong defensive game and win some tightly contested affairs as a result. They will likely need to bring a highly structured game and receive another strong start from Stolarz in order to win this matchup, as the Devils have been playing as well as any team in the league recently.
At -130 I lean with the Devils in this matchup, as I believe that they will be one of the best teams in the league if Markstrom can continue playing closer to the level we saw in Calgary last season moving forward. It does seem unlikely that either team will run away with this game though, and this matchup should feature close score-lines throughout.
An interesting way to target the idea that this will be a closely contested affair is backing the game to go to overtime. It always requires a little luck to get the overtime long-shot home as a winner, but we should see a tightly contested affair in this spot and at +290 we are getting a good number.
Best Bets: Regulation Tie +290 (Sports Interaction, Play to +275)
