The Toronto Maple Leafs hope to accomplish what they could not do in Game 5 of their best-of-seven series with the Montreal Canadiens, which is matching their level of desperation to close out the first round and advance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 17 years.
The Leafs were able to come back from a 3-0 deficit to tie the game and force overtime on Thursday, but Alex Galchenyuk’s giveaway 59 seconds into overtime resulted in Nick Suzuki’s game-winner to extend the series. Toronto now has to step up against a Habs club with renewed hope at the Bell Centre with 2,500 fans in attendance on Saturday or face the prospect of a Game 7 at Scotiabank Arena on Monday.
Montreal matched their series offensive output of four goals in Game 5, while Toronto continued to get production from secondary sources like William Nylander and Jake Muzzin, but to finish off the Canadiens, the Leafs will need Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner to find the back of the net.
"We've had a lot of great chances, we've been around the net, eventually they are going to go in." Marner said. "We're realizing that we're getting our opportunities and they just haven't gone in yet, so we're just staying patient with it. We realize we're gonna keep getting our looks. We want them to go in. Tonight we got to try and bear down a little more and make sure we really do finish them off."
Toronto potentially could make two lineup changes for Game 6. Nick Foligno skated at center between Alex Galchenyuk and William Nylander at the morning skate on Saturday, but Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe indicated that the veteran forward will be a game-time decision. If Foligno does play, Alex Kerfoot will shift down to center the third line between Ilya Mikheyev and Wayne Simmonds and Pierre Engvall will move to the fourth line between Joe Thornton and Jason Spezza.
As expected, Rasmus Sandin will sit after being directly responsible for a pair of Montreal goals on Thursday and will be replaced by Travis Dermott on the bottom pairing with Zach Bogosian.
"I thought (Travis) played a good game for us the other night when we put him in. Rasmus is coming off of a tough night and (I) just felt that we're going with that with (Dermott) would be the right move for us." Keefe said. (It will give) Rasmus a little bit more time to settle in and a combination of both learning from the previous game and gaining a little extra experience as he's making his way through his first playoff series in the NHL."
Montreal may get center Jake Evans back in the lineup after missing the last four games with an undisclosed injury, and will replace injured blueliner Jon Merrill with Brett Kulak on Saturday.
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