The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens meet Wednesday in NHL action from Bell Centre. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best bets for this game. Here’s a Montreal Canadiens vs Toronto Maple Leafs Prediction.
Toronto Maple Leafs Recap
The Toronto Maple Leafs will come into the 2024-25 season as one of the favorites once again, despite another short stay in the postseason in 2023-24, losing to the Boston Bruins in the first round in seven games. The failure once again resulted in Toronto making a coaching change, relieving Sheldon Keefe of his duties and bringing in Craig Berube, who turned around and made Auston Matthews captain, the first US-born captain in Maple Leaf history after scoring 69 goals last season, scoring 60+ in two of the last three years. Mitch Marner’s back as well as Max Domi, John Tavares, William Nylander, and others, leading many to wonder what line combinations Berube is going to work with going forward. The Maple Leafs will meet the Devils and Penguins after this one.
Defensively, the Leafs needed to reload on that end, bringing in the likes of Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to bolster the defense alongside Morgan Rielly. Between the pipes, the job looks like it’s going to Joseph Woll, who has steadily shown signs of improvement but is a relative unknown as a #1, leading the Leafs to bring in goaltender depth like Anthony Stolarz, who had a solid backup campaign for the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, logging 16 wins, a 2.03 GAA and a .925 save percentage in the event Woll gets hurt as he did late last year and in the postseason.
Why the Toronto Maple Leafs will win
- The Canadiens have lost 16 of their last 17 games against Atlantic Division opponents.
- The Maple Leafs have won each of their last five games against the Canadiens.
- The Maple Leafs have covered the puck line in each of their last four games as road favorites.
Montreal Canadiens Recap
The Montreal Canadiens will be out to shock some folks after finishing 30-36-16, missing the playoffs for the third straight season, the first time that’s happened since 1999-2001, and the first time in the storied history of the Habs where they finished last in the division for the third straight year. Montreal stayed pat with a lot of their offense, but one has to wonder if that’s a good thing or a bad thing considering 81 of their goals in 2023-24 came from the top line of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Juraj Slafkovsky.
Patrik Laine was brought in to bolster the second line but got injured in the preseason. Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook are expected to anchor the second line for a Canadiens team that was 26th in goals per game last year. Defensively, Mike Matheson is back as the top d-man in Montreal’s unit as well as Kaiden Guhle while Arber Xhekaj signed an extension for two years. In goal, the departure of Jake Allen at the deadline signaled that the Canadiens were rolling with Samuel Montembault as the #1 goaltender and Cayden Primeau would serve as the backup. Both have experience at the NHL level, but Montembault for the most part has been a career backup, so it’ll be interesting to see how he handles being given the keys to the car.
Why the Montreal Canadiens will win
- The Maple Leafs have lost each of their last four games as favorites.
- The underdogs have won five of the Maple Leafs’ last six games.
- The Maple Leafs have failed to cover the puck line in 27 of their last 29 games as favorites against Atlantic Division opponents.
- The underdogs have covered the puck line in each of the Maple Leafs’ last six games.
Montreal Canadiens vs Toronto Maple Leafs Prediction
I’m going to take a shot on Montreal +1.5. I think this is a one-goal game, but the Leafs have a tendency to start slow and are always in dogfights in these early games against rivals like Montreal and Ottawa. I think the Habs put up a fight early on in the first couple of weeks of the season and tail off eventually, but for right now, I think they can compete and keep this one within reason. Give me Montreal +1.5.