Game Preview #3: New Jersey Devils vs. Toronto Maple Leafs

Coming off their two-game Global Series sweep over the Buffalo Sabres in Prague, the Devils return to North America for their true home opener vs. the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Matchup: New Jersey Devils (2-0-0) vs. Toronto Maple Leafs (0-1-0)

The Time: 7:00pm ET

The Broadcast: MSG

Last Devils Game(s)

The Devils started their campaign over in Prague last week, and they took both games of their two-game “series” against the Buffalo Sabres last Friday and Saturday. Game 1 was a 4-1 victory, while game 2 was a 3-1 win.

Last Maple Leafs Game

Toronto opened their season last night in Montreal, and they suffered a 1-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens. It wasn’t due to lack of effort though, as they outshot the Habs 45-27. Cole Caufield scored the lone goal of the contest, while Maple Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz made 26 saves on 27 shots.

Starting Off On The Right Foot

The Devils handily won both games over the Sabres last week. The season opener was a comfortable win, though one that did see Buffalo really turn the heat on in the third period when trying to play catchup. Thankfully New Jersey successfully parked the bus to salt the game away in the final frame. Game 2 was a much more dominant affair, with the Devils outshooting the Sabres 37-18. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Under Lindy Ruff, and especially last season specifically, New Jersey had a nasty habit of starting games slowly. Even in their amazing 2022-23 season, the Devils rarely stepped on the throats of their opponents right away. And of course, last season was the nadir in this regard, with New Jersey allowing the first goal in a frankly absurd amount of games.

The Devils scored the first goal in the season opener, and it was fantastic to see. They didn’t score first in game 2, but that had more to do with Sabres goalie Devon Levi standing on his head until Seamus Casey broke through on the power play in the 2nd period. And it was off to the races from there.

The Maple Leafs present a much tougher test than the Sabres though. As much as we like to mock them for their annual first round exits, Toronto has proven to be an elite regular season team for close to a decade now. New Jersey will be in for a tougher fight tonight, but if they can continue with the strong efforts to start games, that would go a long way toward securing two points tonight.

Something To Prove

The juiciest storyline of the night, of course, is Sheldon Keefe matching up with his old team for the first time. Keefe took over as coach of the Maple Leafs during the 2019-20 season. Over the course of four-and-a-half seasons behind the bench in Toronto, Keefe compiled a record of 212-97-40, a stellar .665 points% (roughly a 109-point pace over 82 games).

Keefe obviously was not fired for his team’s regular season performances. He was fired for the Leafs’ struggles to get out of the first round of the playoffs year after year. In his five postseason appearances, Keefe guided his team past the first round only once, when they toppled the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games in 2022-23 (and then promptly lost in five in the second round to the Florida Panthers).

This was not a problem unique to Keefe. It was well documented that prior to 2022-23, the Maple Leafs hadn’t gotten out of the first round since 2003-04 when Pat Quinn was the coach. After Quinn left the team, Paul Maurice, Ron Wilson, Randy Carlyle, and Mike Babcock either failed to get the Leafs to the dance, or failed to get out of the first round once there. Credit to Keefe for being the coach to break the drought. But a seven-game loss to the Boston Bruins in round one last spring was finally enough for Maple Leafs management to make a change.

We all know what happened after that: General manager Tom Fitzgerald moved very quickly once Keefe became available, Keefe gladly accepted the offer to coach the Devils, and now he has his team at 2-0-0 thanks to their Global Series sweep. This game is in New Jersey, not Toronto, but even still I have to imagine Keefe is going to be just a little more motivated than usual to leave The Rock tonight with two points in his pocket.

Injury Updates

Good news, bad news here. First, the good news. Luke Hughes is back on the ice:

Hughes is still weeks away, but it’s nice to see some progress.

Meanwhile, still no Brett Pesce:

So expect to see roughly the same defensive setup as we saw in Prague.

The Rest Of The Lineup

Per Amanda Stein, expect close to no changes from what we saw in Prague. The only notable ones are Ondrej Palat returning to the lineup and a minor switch on special teams:

Considering how well these combos seemed to roll against the Sabres, I’m perfectly fine with keeping them intact.

Changes In Toronto

As we touched upon in the Keefe section earlier, for close to a decade now the Maple Leafs have had a habit of not turning elite regular season results into postseason wins. The failures of this past campaign finally broke Leafs management, and they executed some significant changes.

The most notable one, of course, is the firing of Keefe. He was replaced by Craig Berube, who spent parts of six seasons in St. Louis before the Blues fired him 28 games into the 2023-24 season. Berube famously took over the Blues midway through the 2018-19 season, leading them to the franchise’s first ever Stanley Cup championship. St. Louis put up great regular seasons for the next few seasons, but some middling results since 2022-23 spelled the end of Berube in St. Louis.

Now he’s tasked with getting a perpetually underachieving Maple Leafs squad over the postseason hump, something that Keefe was only able to do to a minor degree during his time in Toronto. Will he be the answer for the Leafs? Only time will tell.

The coaching staff was not the only part of the team to experience a changing of the guard in Toronto. In the offseason, John Tavares ceded the Maple Leafs captaincy to Auston Matthews, Toronto’s superstar center. Matthews was almost certainly the captain in waiting, but I personally was a little surprised the switch happened while Tavares was still on the roster. With Matthews installed as the unquestioned leader on the team, it will be interesting to see just how the vibes change, if at all, in the Leafs’ locker room.

Speaking Of Matthews

The gameplan for the Devils tonight starts and ends with stopping Matthews. It’s that simple. Obviously Toronto has other high-end players New Jersey will have to worry about, such as Mitch Marner and William Nylander, but Matthews is the brightest star in the Maple Leafs’ sky.

Matthews led the league with 69 goals in 2023-24, his third time in the last four seasons he’s led the NHL in goals. For his efforts, he garnered a 4th place finish in Hart trophy voting, and perhaps more impressively, a 3rd place finish in Selke trophy voting for the league’s top defensive forward. Matthews is not just a one-dimensional goal scorer. He’s a lockdown center that drives defensive results like few other forwards. If the Devils can slow him down, that will go a long way toward getting two points tonight.

One New Maple Leaf To Watch

Among the new faces Toronto brought in during the offseason, Chris Tanev is the one that interests me the most. Morgan Reilly has been the top blueliner in Toronto for years now, and while he brings big time offensive upside to the table, his play in his own zone isn’t exactly ideal. What Dougie Hamilton is to the Devils, Morgan Reilly is to the Leafs.

Enter Chris Tanev and his reputation for being a suffocating shutdown defenseman. Tanev, who is entering his age 35 season (he turns 35 in December), signed a six-year(!), $4.5m AAV deal in the offseason that he almost certainly won’t reach the end of. But for now, he provides an element that Toronto has been lacking for a while now.

The Maple Leafs have had decent defensive defensemen in recent seasons, such as Jake Muzzin or Jake McCabe, but those have been second pairing caliber players. Tanev is a guy expected to take on top pairing minutes alongside Reilly. You would expect Father Time to catch up to a guy in his mid-30’s soon, especially one who plays as punishing a style as Tanev. But for now he’s the defensive conscience of Toronto’s blueline.

Potential Lineup

Here’s how the Maple Leafs lined up last night:

Expect a similar lineup tonight.

Your Take

What are you expecting out of tonight’s game? Will you be attending the home opener tonight? What do you make of the Sheldon Keefe vs. his old team storyline. What players will you be watching closely tonight? As always, thanks for reading!