Coming off their best 5-on-5 performance of the year thus far, it’s obvious that — while Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Mitch Marner are scoring at will right now — the Leafs are far more capable of controlling games possession-wise at even strength when they’ve got four lines rolling, with a bottom-six that keeps the pedal to the metal and sets up the next shift for the team’s heavy artillery up front.
Tonight, Mike Babcock will stick with the same forward lines from the victory over the Stars (Par Lindholm up with Nazem Kadri and Connor Brown on L3, Frederik Gauthier centering Josh Leivo and Tyler Ennis on line four), but he’ll make a minor substitution on the blue line.