Gameday 16: Re-Leaf At Home

Posted on November 15, 2022 by The66thDopefish

Another quick stop at home for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they host the Toronto Maple Leafs before heading out on a quick tour of the bottom of the Central Division. In case you missed it, the Penguins lost their first game in a week(!) on Saturday with a 5-4 overtime loss against the Montreal Canadiens. The good news is that they got the loser point out of the deal, and that gave them five points out of a possible six on their brief road trip. I’m totally fine with them keeping up that rate for the rest of the season! The bad news is that Pittsburgh gave up three one-goal leads in the game, leading 2-1 heading into the third period, then dropping the 3-2 and 4-3 leads in short order (30 seconds and 40 seconds, respectively). There is seemingly no rhyme or reason to when they can or cannot hold onto leads, but they do not do any of it consistently.

Since the Maple Leafs are a pretty familiar opponent (the Penguins beat them 4-2 last week), how about a quick summary of the state of the League as we approach the 1/5th mark on the schedule?

Three of the NHL’s four divisions feature teams on strong runs of late. Boston leads the League with a 14-2 record and a +30 goal differential, while Vegas and New Jersey (hey, it feels good to have a dark horse prediction looking good) are also 9-1 in their last ten games. Of course it’s Mr. Two-Points-Per-Game Connor McDavid and his teammate Leon Draisatl at the top of the scoring leaderboards, but the Bruins’ David Pastrnak is not too far behind. For the Devils, they’ve enjoyed all-around dominance of their foes to date, but now the challenge will be surviving without the top two goalies on their depth chart, with both Vitek Vanecek and Mackenzie Blackwood hurt in the past week. For now the goal will be kept by some guy named Akira Schmid, who will be backed up by Nico Daws.

Has anybody seen Teddy Blueger lately?

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