The Toronto Maple Leafs will have to shift gears to handle the Atlanta Thrashers on Thursday night.
After the Leafs' game-day skate on Thursday morning, head coach Paul Maurice noted the Thrashers, despite their abundant individual speed and skill, play a different style than the Leafs' last two National Hockey League opponents, the Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres. The Thrashers play more of a neutral-zone trap game like the New Jersey Devils, sending in just one fore-checker to the offensive zone.
"The most important thing for our team is we're not going to face a two-man fore-check," Maurice said. "When that happens, your tendency is to slow down. When you play Jersey, you slow your game down to find the holes to put the puck through the trap and through that 1-2-2 [fore-checking system].
"We didn't do that against Buffalo and Carolina. We transitioned it as fast and as hard as we could. Because they're so aggressive, if you do it well, you find the holes and open up the game iup on them. But here [Thursday night], that is probably my chief concern, that we're going to try and put every pass on the tape and fit the puck through their team. We're not going to be able to do that."
The Thrashers go into the game with a three-point lead in the Southeast Division over the Tampa Bay Lightning, who have 86 points and were tied in points with the Montreal Canadiens for the seventh and eighth playoff spots. Thanks to the NHL's seeding system for division leaders, this means the Thrashers were third in the conference. But the consequences of a letdown could see them fall to seventh or eighth and playoff jeopardy if the Lightning get moving.
The Leafs went into the game tied for ninth with 84 points and they have to regard the Thrashers as one of the teams fighting for the last three playoff spots in the Eastern Conference. Coming up for the Leafs is a game Saturday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sunday against the New York Rangers, who were sixth with 87 points before Thursday's games.
"This is a big four days for us," Leafs captain Mats Sundin said. "We have to keep doing what we've been doing and not worry about what the teams around us are doing.
"I've never seen so many teams in the [playoff] race before."
Maurice said he will not make any changes to the lineup that took a two-game winning streak into the game. Centre Kyle Wellwood, who sat out the last two periods of the Leafs' 6-1 win over the Hurricanes on Tuesday, will play a regular shift. But if he shows any more discomfort from his sports hernia surgery that could change.
"I'm pretty close to being 100 per cent now," Wellwood said.
