Maple Leafs back to work for practice on Tuesday in a good spot

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We return you to your regularly scheduled Maple Leafs season.

Well, almost.

We will be fascinated to witness happens in the championship game at the 4 Nations Face-Off on Thursday in Boston, when Leafs captain Auston Matthews — we think — and usual running mate Mitch Marner attempt to put a dagger in each other’s title hopes. Matthews didn’t play against Sweden on Tuesday night, reportedly because of upper-body soreness, but is expected to play on Thursday.

Canada versus the United States, the expected final that became reality when Canada beat Finland 5-3 on Monday afternoon, is the proper way for the best-on-best tournament to be decided. Much respect to Finland and Sweden, but it’s the match that the majority of hockey fans desired.

One of Matthews or Marner will return to Toronto later in the week with bragging rights. Both will be expected to resume their leading ways on Saturday when the Leafs play host to the Carolina Hurricanes at Scotiabank Arena. Ditto for William Nylander, whose Swedes had their 4 Nations fate sealed by the Canada victory in regulation on Monday after Sweden lost each of its first two games in overtime.

For the rest of the Leafs, vacation is over.

The team is slated to be back on the ice for practice on Tuesday afternoon at the Ford Performance Centre, the players fresh off time away from the rink and, presumably, just about set for the final charge to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

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Ten days have passed since the Leafs finished a four-game trip with a 2-1 loss in Vancouver against the Canucks, but the club will find itself in a good position on Saturday when the National Hockey League season resumes with 14 games.

The remaining body of work for the Leafs includes 27 games, with 11 at home and 16 on the road.

Fourteen are against teams that are not in a playoff spot. Thirteen are against teams that are above the wild-card cut-off line.

First place in the Atlantic Division is in reach for the Leafs. With 68 points, they’re in second place in the Atlantic, three behind the first-place Florida Panthers and two up on the third-place Tampa Bay Lightning. Both Toronto and Tampa have two games in hand on Florida. Whether there’s a challenge for a top-three spot from the Ottawa Senators, Detroit Red Wings or Boston Bruins is debatable. They’re four, five and six points in back of Tampa respectively. One, perhaps, could work its way into the upper echelon of the division.

Craig Berube has instilled good habits in the Leafs in his first season behind the bench, but there remains room for the team to take further steps in the next couple of months prior to the playoffs.

The Leafs are 12th in goals for (3.07 a game) and 12th in goals against (2.84 a game). On the power play, they’re 12th at 23.2% and on the penalty kill, they’re 13th at 79.9% coming out of the break. Getting both special teams into the top 10 should be a goal.

We have a fairly good idea that the Leafs, as they assemble for the game against Carolina, won’t be the same once the NHL trade deadline passes on March 7.

A year ago, Brad Treliving didn’t make a huge splash leading up to the deadline, acquiring defencemen Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin, and forward Connor Dewar in three separate trades.

This time, how the general manager goes about acquiring a centre or a depth defenceman when he doesn’t have many assets to use will require some nifty stickhandling on his part.

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Without a first-round pick this year (traded to the Chicago Blackhawks in the February 2023 deal that brought defenceman Jake McCabe and forward Sam Lafferty to Toronto), Treliving has one fewer valuable options on his hands.

We can throw around names such as Scott Laughton, Brock Nelson, Ryan O’Reilly or Yanni Gourde (who is recovering from sports hernia surgery) as much as we want. If Treliving can’t meet the asks of potential trading partners, and none of those players would be handed to the Leafs, deals are unlikely to happen. What we do know is that the Leafs can’t go into the playoffs with a one-two “punch” of Pontus Holmberg and David Kampf in the bottom-six at centre. Somehow, Treliving has to find a way to improve the team at one of those spots.

Matthews, Marner and Nylander, as well as John Tavares, should be primed to guide the Leafs in the next several weeks. It’s encouraging that veteran defenceman Morgan Rielly was playing good hockey leading into the break, and the longest-serving current Leaf has to keep that going now.

Encouraging, too, was the play of goalie Anthony Stolarz from a knee injury when he returned on Feb. 6 in Seattle. In Stolarz and Joseph Woll, there’s no concern in net for Toronto.

Before anything else, though, buckle up for the Canada/U.S. fun on Thursday night.

MARLIES WIN BIG

The Toronto Marlies on Monday afternoon treated a Family Day crowd of 10,882 at Scotiabank Arena to a 7-2 trouncing of the Laval Rocket.

Cedric Pare had two goals and an assist for the Marlies, while captain Logan Shaw and team leading scorer Alex Steeves each had a goal and two assists. Jacob Quillan, Nikita Grebenkin and Alex Nylander each had a goal and an assist.

In goal, Dennis Hildeby made 20 saves as the Marlies improved to 27-13-2-5.

tkoshan@postmedia.com
X: @koshtorontosun