Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Columbus Blue Jackets: NHL Odds, Prediction
This is a tough second of a back-to-back for the Toronto Maple Leafs as they had to play at home on Tuesday and then fly to Ohio to face a good Columbus Blue Jackets team on Wednesday night.
Maple Leafs vs. Blue Jackets Betting Analysis
This is the first of three meeting between the teams, with the next two in Toronto on Jan. 8 and Feb. 14.
Last year, Columbus won two of the three meetings with the losing team scoring two goals in each. They played in the regular-season finale and Columbus won 3-2 in Toronto. That meant the Leafs fell out of a possible first-round Battle of Ontario playoff matchup vs. Ottawa and into a series with the Eastern Conference top-seeded Capitals.
Nazem Kadri led the Leafs with four points vs. the Blue Jackets in 2016-17. James van Riemsdyk had two goals. Auston Matthews had a goal. Frederik Andersen was 1-0-0 with a 2.00 goals-against average and .941 save percentage. Curtis McElhinney was 0-2-0 with a 3.60 GAA and .894 SV.
Three players led Columbus with three points vs. Toronto: Matt Calvert, Boone Jenner and Zach Werenski. Backup goaltender Joonas Korpisalo started all three games and had a 2.68 GAA and .917 SV.
The road team has won five of the past six in this series overall.
Toronto Maple Leafs
From a travel perspective, at least the Leafs (21-13-1) played Tuesday afternoon – the 100th anniversary of the first games played in NHL history — instead of a typical 7 p.m. ET start at Air Canada Centre. They ended a three-game losing streak in style with an 8-1 rout of Carolina.
Mitch Mariner had a career-high four points with three assists and a goal, snapping a 15-game streak without one. Tyler Bozak also had three assists and a goal. Toronto scored four times in the first period and four in the third. Andersen had 32 saves; most likely it will be the backup McElhinney on Wednesday as goalies rarely play both ends of a back-to-back. McElhinney is 3-3-0 with a 2.55 GAA and .921 SV.
Matthews missed his fifth consecutive game with an upper-body injury. He still leads the team with 26 points and did travel to Columbus.
Columbus Blue Jackets
Columbus (20-13-1) is battling for the Metropolitan lead – that division is jam-packed with probably every team capable of winning it other than perhaps Carolina and Philadelphia. The Blue Jackets have lost two straight and three of four as their offence continues to be a problem. In those three defeats, they have totaled five goals. It was a 7-2 loss in Boston on Monday as Sergei Bobrovsky, one of the best goalies in the NHL, was torched. He is in a bit of a slump in allowing 29 goals over his last eight games, winning just three of those starts.
Columbus still ranks Top 10 in goals-against (2.7 per game) but scores just 2.8. The team recently lost centre Brandon Dubinsky to a broken orbital bone suffered in a Dec. 12 blowout loss to Edmonton. Dubinsky will miss 6-8 weeks. He has 12 points in 31 games.
