Tonight the Toronto Maple Leafs visit the St. Louis Blues for the first and only game this year. The Leafs are looking to break their first losing streak of the season while the Blues look to get their first win streak of the season after defeating Chicago 3-0. While both clubs are 2-3-0 in their last 5 games the Blues are playing their second game with new head coach Ken Hitchcock and are looking to be more consistent with their play.
The Leafs need their offense to show up tonight in St. Louis, despite having the leading scorer in the league the Leafs have only managed 1 goal in their 2 game slide. Phil Kessel scored last game and hopefully he can get a streak going with some points tonight, his 11 goals and 11 assists put him far ahead of the Blues leading scorer T.J Oshie who has 4 goals and 6 assists.
The most important thing for the Leafs tonight however is stability in net, whoever starts this game the Leafs need them to finish it. In this game the goalie does not need to be spectacular just give the Leafs a chance to win stop the stoppable shots and come up big at key times.
The second biggest thing for the Leafs has to be coming out of the gate flying too often this year the first period has been a momentum sapper for the Leafs, if they want to get the W tonight they will need to create some offence in the first period and give themselves some confidence. At home it is hard to come back after a soft first period, on the road it is next to impossible.
So in summary the Leafs keys to winning are a strong start, their offense showing up and some consistency in the net.
*all stats from NHL.com
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