NHL Expert Picks - Toronto Maple Leafs at Vancouver Canucks

Toronto Maple Leafs at Vancouver Canucks

Saturday, October 24th – GM Place, Vancouver 

It’s becoming really hard to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs play. They cannot score, they cannot defend, they take too many dumb penalties and their top two goalies are out with injuries. The Leafs haven’t played in a week, and looked lifeless in last Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Rangers.

Coach Ron Wilson is trying everything to spark his team, from dodgeball in practice to encouraging fights between players. Phil Kessell can’t come back to the ice soon enough.  

The Canucks finally won their first road game of the season, a 3-2 victory over Chicago, on Wednesday. They were trailing 2-1 going into the third, but scored twice in three minutes to steal the win. A game like that will go a long way in building confidence for a team that’s been struggling for consistency so far in the young season. It’s an especially big win for Roberto Luongo, who was able to gain a measure of revenge against the team that embarrassed him in the playoffs last year.  
 
What The Maple Leafs Have To Do To Win:

Perhaps the Leafs biggest problem so far has been taking stupid penalties and being completely incapable of killing them off. It seems that every time Toronto gets any semblance of momentum one of their players takes a bad penalty and sucks all the energy out of the team. If they want to even have a chance at winning they have to work on fixing that before anything else.  

Otherwise, it’s just a simple case of playing better. The offense needs to create more opportunities, the defense needs to tighten up, and the goalie (whoever it may be) needs to make that big save when the time comes. They don’t need a complete overhaul; the team is not as bad as their record indicates. Every team goes through phases where players have bad stretches; it just seems that every Maple Leaf player is going through that at the same time.  
 
What The Canucks Have To Do To Win:

The Canucks live and die off of Roberto Luongo. If he does well, the team does well. When he struggles, the team will undoubtedly struggle with him. Luongo’s numbers so far this season, a 3.07 GAA and .881 SV%, have been less than spectacular. So it’s no surprise that the Canucks, a preseason favorite to represent the West in the Stanley Cup, are 4-5-0 and sit fourth in the Northwest. Bobby Lu has struggled before and there is nothing to indicate he won’t bounce back this time. However fans in Vancouver hope it will happen sooner rather than later.  

Vancouver is really missing the offensive spark of Daniel Sedin, who is out until late November with a leg injury. Now more than ever they need their secondary scorers, like Mikael Samuelsson and Ryan Kesler, to provide some offense until Sedin comes back.  
 
Outlook & Pick 

Neither team is performing the way they were expected. However calling off the season is still a premature reaction, even for the Maple Leafs. Eventually the Leafs will win a game, and Vancouver is playing inconsistent enough to be caught off guard by a desperate team. Maybe a week off away from the bright lights of Toronto helped the Leafs. All signs point to a Vancouver victory, but the Leafs just seem due.  

Pick: Toronto Maple Leafs