At least one streak will end in Detroit on Monday.
The Toronto Maple Leafs will look to finish off a perfect four-game road trip against the host Red Wings on Monday. Also, Maple Leafs forward Mitchell Marner will seek to extend his point streak to 17 games.
Detroit, in turn, will try to extend its winning streak to five games and defenseman Filip Hronek will aim to score for the fifth consecutive contest.
Toronto has collected victories against New Jersey, Minnesota and Pittsburgh during its road swing. It posted a 4-1 win over the Penguins on Saturday as Marner scored in the first minute and added an assist.
Marner has 22 points (five goals, 17 assists) during the point streak and needs at least one point against Detroit and San Jose on Wednesday to tie the club record set by Darryl Sittler (1977-78) and Eddie Olczyk (1989-90).
“I guess it’s cool, but we’re trying to get wins as a hockey team,” Marner said. “We’re trying to do something special. We’re just trying to collect wins and do our thing.”
The Maple Leafs haven’t lost in regulation over the last eight games, going 6-0-2 during that streak. During the last five victories, they have outscored the opposition 10-1 in the first period. A pair of those wins came in Pittsburgh, as they beat the Penguins 5-2 on Nov. 15 after scoring two goals in the first period.
“We talked about how the recipe for us here of late has been to get off to good starts, control the game,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “That’s sort of the way the game went the last time we were in here. It’s the way it’s been on this trip. That set us up for success, for sure.”
This will be the first of four matchups between the Original Six foes. They’ll play twice more in January and once in April.
Detroit gave up a game-tying goal to Arizona in the final minute of regulation on Friday, then pulled out a shootout victory. Captain Dylan Larkin scored the lone goal during the shootout.
Hronek had a goal — his fifth in four games — and an assist.
“It’s like everything he shoots is going in,” forward Lucas Raymond said. “Everyone knows he has a great shot, so he’s been getting it off and everyone’s seeing it now. I feel we’ve seen it for a long time, we’ve seen it all the time in practice. It’s fun just trying to feed him the puck.”
Detroit has 13 goals from its defensemen during the first 20 games.
“The biggest thing is we’re playing for each other and it’s paying off,” Hronek said.
The Red Wings also defeated San Jose, Columbus and Nashville during the current streak after going winless in their previous four games (0-2-2).
The Red Wings are playing the middle game of a five-game homestand.
“There’s a good vibe around the guys right now,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “There’s some momentum. What I’m most impressed with in this four-game win streak and five-point streak is that prior to that we were 0-2-2. We were technically on a four-game losing streak. I liked the way the guys played to get out of that. We’ve probably leaned on our special teams too much. We’re probably overachieving as a group just because we’ve had some great will, some great attitude.”
–Field Level Media
