Wild look to hold high-scoring Toronto in check

Published

Toronto is among the league leaders so far with 24 goals in six games, but the Minnesota Wild have excelled at shutting the Maple Leafs down in recent years.

The Wild, who visit the Maple Leafs on Tuesday, have a 2.13 GAA against Toronto over the past five seasons. Minnesota is 9-0-0 over its past dozen meetings with Toronto when allowing three goals or fewer.



It's not just the Maple Leafs, however.

Minnesota has dominated its annual road trip through eastern Canada over the past few seasons. The Wild are a combined 11-1-1 against Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal since 2015 and are undefeated against all three since a 4-2 loss to the Maple Leafs on Nov. 8, 2017.

They kept the streak alive Monday, beating the Senators 2-0 for their first win of the season.

Wild forward Eric Staal, who has just one assist in five games this season, will look to get on the board in Toronto.

Staal has 13 goals career goals at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena, second amongst active non-Leafs players to Washington Capitals winger Alexander Ovechkin.

Unfortunately for the Wild, Toronto's Auston Matthews has done most of his damage at home this season. Matthews is tied for second in the NHL with six goals in six games and has scored five of them in Toronto.

He's not alone.

The Maple Leafs have been averaging 3.58 goals per game at home since the start of last season, which ranks fourth, while their power play has been converting at a 25% clip since the beginning of the 2017-18 season.

Other notes:

-- Brad Hunt is tied for the Wild lead with two goals and four points so far. He leads all Wild defensemen with five goals since arriving via trade in January.

-- Toronto's Morgan Rielly has 77 points since the beginning of last season, tied for third amongst NHL defensemen over that span.

-- The Wild's penalty kill has struggled on the road in recent years. They rank 21st in the NHL at 78.6% since the beginning of the 2017-18 season.

-- Minnesota has allowed just one power-play goal on the road this year, and is now 14-for-15 on the penalty kill away from Xcel Energy Center.

Statistics via Sportradar