After a successful three-game homestand, sweeping their three games against the St. Louis Blues, Philadelphia Flyers, and Anaheim Ducks, the Toronto Maple Leafs now head out on the road to begin a four-game road trip starting against the Blues for their second and final meeting this season.
However, the Maple Leafs will continue to play without their leader on the backend, Morgan Rielly, who is still serving his five-game suspension for his cross-check to the head of Ottawa’s Ridly Greig back on February 10th. Their captain, John Tavares, only played in one of the home games, missing the game against the Blues and Ducks due to illness and a minor injury, but according to Sheldon Keefe, Tavares is feeling good.
Unfortunately, given the early start time today – with no morning skate – and the handful of players absent from yesterday’s skate, Keefe also told the media that there are quite a few game-time decisions.
John Tavares says he’s feeling good.
Sheldon Keefe says the guys who missed the skate today are all game-time decisions for tomorrow.“At this point, quite honestly, I don’t have any real sense of what our lineup is going to look like tomorrow.” @BodogCA
— David Alter (@dalter) February 18, 2024
Max Domi, Jake McCabe, and Timothy Liljegren are all listed as game-time decisions, according to Keefe, and William Lagesson, who left the game against the Ducks after playing just 1:31, is also a surprise game-time decision this afternoon despite Keefe saying postgame on Saturday night that he was going to miss some time due to whatever injury he was dealing with that forced him to leave the game.
It’s uncertain what the Toronto Maple Leafs’ final lineup will eventually look like once the puck drops for this afternoon’s game against the St. Louis Blues, with four players tagged with a game-time decision. However, if everyone who missed yesterday’s skate is good to go, we can expect a similar-looking lineup to the one that took on the Flyers this past Thursday.
Pregame details:
Toronto Maple Leafs’ lineup:
Matthew Knies – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
Tyler Bertuzzi – John Tavares – William Nylander
Bobby McMann – Max Domi – Nick Robertson
Pontus Holmberg – David Kampf – Noah Gregor
TJ Brodie – Timothy Liljegren
Simon Benoit – Jake McCabe
Marshall Rifai – Max Lajoie
One lineup note: If Marshall Rifai, who was recently called up to the NHL, gets the nod to play, given the absence of one of McCabe, Liljegren or Lagesson, it will be the 25-year-old’s first career NHL game. Rifai, who signed with the Toronto organization on an AHL deal in 2022, has since earned himself a new two-year, two-way contract that kicked in this season, and he will add his name to the long list of defensemen who have played a game with the big club since the start of last season. Rifai has played in 103 AHL games with the Toronto Marlies, scoring six goals and 21 assists for 27 points.
St. Louis Blues’ lineup:
Pavel Buchnevich – Robert Thomas – Jordan Kyrou
Jake Neighbours – Brayden Schenn – Kasperi Kapanen
Brandon Saad – Kevin Hayes – Sammy Blais
Alexey Toropchenko – Oskar Sundqvist – Nathan Walker
Nick Leddy – Colton Parayko
Torey Krug – Matt Kessel
Marco Scandella – Calle Rosen
Projected goalies:
Ilya Samsonov (TOR) vs Jordan Binnington (STL)
Broadcast:
Sportsnet, 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT
(Stats from hockey-reference.com)
(Projected lineups from dailyfaceoff.com)
