A suddenly surging Toronto Maple Leafs team is the opponent for the Chicago Blackhawks this Friday afternoon at the United Center.
Toronto’s roller-coaster ride of a season is currently trending northward as part of a whiplash-inducing first month of the 2023-24 campaign. Toronto won its first two, then lost two straight (including a 4-1 loss to this Blackhawks team at home), then won three straight, then lost five of six and is now on a four-game winning streak after beating the Minnesota Wild 4-3 in overtime last Sunday in Sweden.
It all leaves the Leafs in fourth place in the Atlantic Division with a 10-5-2 record and 22 points, which isn’t exactly where this team has been expected to be. Injuries certainly haven’t helped, with forward Calle Jarnkrok and defensemen John Klingberg and Timothy Liljegren all being sidelined by injuries this month. Many of the familiar names are leading the team in scoring: William Nylander with 27 points (12 G, 15 A), Auston Matthews with 21 (14 G, 7 A), Mitch Marner with 20 (5 G, 15 A) and John Tavares with 19 (7 G, 12 A).
But, once again, the goaltending in Toronto is a massive red flag with offseason signing Ilya Samsonov having a 4-1-2 record that only serves as proof that goalie wins are not a worthwhile statistic because he also has a .878 save percentage and 3.56 goals-against average. Backup Joseph Woll, a 2016 third-round pick by Toronto, is a little better at 6-4, 2.90 and .909. Still, the crux of this team’s issues is that it allows damn near as many goals per game (3.43 24th in the league) as it scores (3.53, seventh in the league). And if that issue doesn’t get resolved, it’s hard to see how Toronto nabs the Stanley Cup its been chasing for so long.
The clock’s ticking on this group, too, with Nylander headed for unrestricted free agency next summer, followed by Tavares and Marner in 2025. While the Leafs did get over that first-round playoff hurdle last season, substantially more was expected from this group and if it’s not obtained in 2024, then this whole thing may be headed for destruction.
As for the Blackhawks, it’s been a bizarre couple of days, with the Corey Perry drama hovering around while the team was throttled by the Blue Jackets in Columbus on Wednesday night. The only update from coach Luke Richardson on Perry’s situation is that there is no update, as he said again during Friday’s pregame media session:
With Perry out and Andreas Athanasiou moved to IR, Cole Guttman and Joey Anderson were brought up from Rockford. But it seems like any potential success for the Hawks on Friday will need to come as a result of goals piled up by that top trio of Lukas Reichel, Connor Bedard and Philipp Kurashev.
A weird couple of days don’t seem to be headed towards normalcy anytime soon. Should make for an interesting afternoon.
Let’s go Hawks.
How to watch
When: 1 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720