The Maple Leafs held an optional skate on Saturday morning. The Canucks held a full skate.
John Tavares and Wayne Simmonds will often reminisce about helping Team Canada win gold at the 2008 World Juniors.
"We had a lot of fun," Tavares recalled with a smile. "We've had a chuckle from time to time not just as teammates now, but any time we bumped into each other."
The title run in the Czech Republic featured plenty of twists and turns. Canada lost to Sweden in the preliminary round before exacting revenge in the final. Sweden tied the gold-medal game in the final minute of the third period before Matt Halischuk played the hero in overtime.
"It was a great run, a great tournament and we won it in great fashion so [those are] memories we have together for the rest of our lives," Tavares said. "Great to be here now many years later and playing together and being on the same team and chasing another championship."
Tavares and Simmonds aren't just teammates again, right now they are linemates. Simmonds was promoted to Toronto's second unit alongside Tavares and William Nylander ahead of Thursday’s game against the Canucks.
"It went pretty good," said Tavares, who scored his first five-on-five goal of the season. "We got better as the night went on so just want to build off that."
Shots favoured the Leafs 7-3 when that line was on the ice.
Since starting on the fourth line, Simmonds has seen his role steadily increase. He played a season high 14 minutes and 40 seconds against Vancouver.
"He did a good job," said head coach Sheldon Keefe. "He's showing lots of jump. He's skating really well and being able to sustain it consistently throughout games. He does a great job of keeping the shifts short. He gets off the ice before things get real difficult on his shift and trusts his teammates to go out and do the job."
Simmonds is averaging 42 seconds per shift this season, which is lowest among Toronto's top-nine forwards.
"His minutes have increased greatly as the season has gone on and we've seen real benefits to that in terms of his confidence and his puck play," Keefe said. "Because of how he works and goes to the net and disrupts things on the forecheck, he creates a lot more loose pucks and zone time for John and Will so that was that was good to see."
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Simmonds was jostling with Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers in front of the net when Nylander set up Tavares for a tap-in goal on Thursday. It was only the latest sweet set-up by Nylander this season.
"Willy's game really is the full package. [He's] a dual-threat option," Tavares observed. "He's extremely strong on the puck and competitive on it, which is something that's very underrated for him and maybe doesn't get recognized enough."
Among the Leafs, only Mitch Marner (11) has more assists than Nylander (eight) so far this season.
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— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) February 5, 2021
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Nylander also picked up an assist on a Jason Spezza power-play goal on Thursday. Toronto has struck on the man advantage in 10 of 11 games and is benefiting from rolling out two balanced units.
"There is some competition there," noted Keefe. "That's how we had designed it and what we hoped would materialize. Both units have found success."
Auston Matthews and Marner anchor one unit while Tavares and Nylander lead the other one.
"We've got some real good competition happening there," Keefe continued. "We've been able to spread it out well. I think, as you've seen at different times, we do blend the two units together whether the game we feel has called for it or within line changes and things like that, but we like the balance that we've had with it and the players have responded very well."
Seven different Leafs have scored on the power play already this season.
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The Canucks never really got their legs going on Thursday night as they played for the 14th time in 23 days.
"We got to skate better than we did last game," said coach Travis Green. "We looked half a step to a whole step behind a very fast team."
Vancouver will bring some fresh bodies into the lineup today with Loui Eriksson and Justin Bailey both projected to make their season debuts. Eriksson skated alongside Bo Horvat and Tanner Pearson this morning while Bailey joined Brandon Sutter and Nils Hoglander.
"I don't think we're a team that's built to chase teams from behind," Green noted. "We're not a high-flying team throughout our lineup. Our game is a little more methodical when we're playing well. We tend to start the game in an even manner and slowly apply pressure as the game goes on by being relentless and being on top of our details and that's kind of part of the game that's gotten away from us a little bit."
The Leafs are looking to win back-to-back games against the same team for the second time this season. They previously accomplished the feat in Calgary during their recent Alberta road trip. Keefe reiterated to his group that it’s hard to post consecutive wins against a quality opponent.
"We talked about that this morning," the coach said. "The other team, in this case Vancouver, is going to push back. They're going to be a lot more focused. They had another day off yesterday. That's two out of the last three days off. They'll have a lot more energy and legs here today. It's going to be a much different game and we've got to be prepared for that."
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The Lotto Line featuring Elias Pettersson between J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser was reunited at the morning skate. They are focused on being more responsible defensively.
"If we take care of that and be better defensively, really commit to it, that will allow us to get more turnovers, get to pucks and get in the offensive zone more and that's where we do our best work," Boeser said.
"We got to be smarter with the puck," said Pettersson. "We got to be better at protecting it. It's been a lot of one and done. We're coming into the offensive zone, we shoot the puck and don't win it back. We got to win more puck battles. We got to be better at protecting the puck, especially me, I've been a lot of one and dones and I need to protect it better and make smarter plays with it."
A lack of clean break outs has prevented the line from building momentum.
"It gets pretty quiet sometimes and we've been harping on that so we need to talk better," said Boeser. "If we talk and know where each other are and make those small passes it will allow us to break out cleaner."
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Pettersson only has one assist in four career games against the Leafs, but the Swede plays a prominent role in Toronto's pre-scout.
"His ability to shoot the puck is one thing," said defenceman Justin Holl when asked what stands out. "He can really wire it. He can also get himself into dangerous places on the ice. We went over it on video a little bit. All the good players want the middle of the ice so a big key for us is to deny the middle and keep them to the outside. He's one of the guys who does a really good job of finding himself in the middle."
As the Canucks navigate a tough start to the season, Pettersson was asked who he leans on for support and advice. The 21-year-old described himself as a "lone wolf."
"I'm used to working on my own stuff either looking at video or just coming up with new ideas to be better," Pettersson said. "But, of course, there's always coaches there to help me."
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Projected Leafs line-up based on Friday's practice:
Hyman - Matthews - Marner
Nylander - Tavares - Simmonds
Vesey - Kerfoot - Mikheyev
Petan - Boyd - Spezza
Rielly - Brodie
Muzzin - Holl
Lehtonen - Bogosian
Andersen starts
Hutchinson
Lines at Canucks morning skate on Saturday:
Miller - Pettersson - Boeser
Pearson - Horvat - Eriksson
Bailey - Sutter - Hoglander
Motte - Beagle - Roussel
Hughes - Benn
Schmidt - Myers
Edler - Chatfield
Holtby starts
Demko
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiaGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRzbi5jYS93YXluZS1zaW1tb25kcy1tYWtlcy1pbW1lZGlhdGUtaW1wYWN0LW9uLWpvaG4tdGF2YXJlcy13aWxsaWFtLW55bGFuZGVyLWxpbmUtMS4xNTg5MTE40gEA?oc=5
2021-02-06 21:18:07Z
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