The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Minnesota Wild meet in NHL action from the Xcel Energy Center on Friday afternoon.
The Toronto Maple Leafs will try to find some consistency, alternating wins and losses in each of their last five games after a 2-1 win over the New Jersey Devils last time out. Mitch Marner leads the Leafs with 24 points including a team-high 20 assists while John Tavares is right behind with 23 points including a team-high 12 goals. Austin Matthews has 21 points with 9 goals and 12 assists and William Nylander has 21 points with 10 goals and 11 assists this season. Ilya Samsonov’s 6-2 with a 2.23 GAA and a .921 save percentage in goal for Toronto so far this season.
The Minnesota Wild will look to build on a 6-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets in their last game. Kirill Kaprizov has a team-high 22 points with a team-high 11 goals and 11 assists while Mats Zuccarello has 18 points with 6 goals and a team-high 12 assists. Matt Boldy has 14 points with 7 goals and 7 assists and Joel Eriksson Ek has 14 points with 6 goals and 8 assists. Calen Addison also has 9 assists this season. Marc-Andre Fleury is 6-4-1 with a 2.80 GAA and a .906 save percentage while Filip Gustavsson is 3-4-1 with a 2.62 GAA and a .914 save percentage this season.
Toronto is 3-7 in their last 10 road games and 4-1 in their last 5 Friday games while the under is 9-2 in their last 11 games played on 1 days rest. Minnesota is 56-24 in their last 80 home games and 24-11 in their last 35 games against the Eastern Conference while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 games against the Atlantic division.
I get the reasoning to be made on either side here and you could argue the over here as well based on the offensive talent on both sides. However, I’m looking at the under here as both goaltending groups have really risen to the occasion in recent games and I just don’t think we see a ton of goals here as this just feels like a 3-2 kind of game. I like the under here.
