The Toronto Maple Leafs are among the NHL’s highest-scoring teams, averaging 3.75 goals per game, but coach Jim Hiller wants his team to focus on how those goals are generated when they host the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday.
“There are different times we rush and just want to score off the rush,” Hiller said. “That’s really hard to do consistently in this league. If you forecheck, you give yourself a chance.”
The Maple Leafs have navigated injuries to several key forwards, with John Tavares (lower body) and Kirill Marchenko (lower body) on injured reserve. Max Domi (back) remains on long-term injured reserve. Tavares returned to practice Monday for the first time since sustaining his injury Oct. 15.
Auston Matthews tallied his team-leading 11th goal in a 4-2 road win over the struggling Vancouver Canucks on Saturday, while William Nylander, Teddy Blueger and Zack MacEwen also scored for the Maple Leafs.
Matthews leads Toronto with 11 goals and 13 assists, while Nylander has five goals and five assists over his last 10 games.
Dakota Joshua and Chris Tanev returned to Toronto’s lineup against Vancouver after missing time with injuries. Joshua added depth to the forward group, while Tanev bolstered the blue line.
“A little rust on both of them,” Hiller said of his returning veterans. “But both were solid contributors.”
Backup goaltender Anthony Stolarz improved to 5-1, and Hiller said he is an important part of the team’s goaltending rotation.
“You’ve got to win games … there’s a lot of them,” Hiller said. “They come at you fast and you need everyone.”
The Mammoth are also short-handed, with defenseman John Marino (upper body) unavailable. Utah suffered a 6-3 road defeat against the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday.
Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said his club needs to battle for possession.
“When your opponent has the puck, it’s tough to create offense,” he said. “It’s tough to defend with the same pace and the same pride.”
Tourigny also wants Utah to tighten up defensively. Philadelphia scored within the first 70 seconds of both the second and third periods.
“Our focus was in the wrong place,” Tourigny said. “We didn’t defend hard enough and the puck ended up in the back of our net.”
Logan Cooley has eight goals and five assists over his last 10 games for the Mammoth, who lead the NHL with 18 power-play goals.
Mikhail Sergachev has five goals and 12 assists this season.
“If we aren’t executing we need to take a breather during the period,” Sergachev said. “We need to say, ‘Relax, we are good.’ We have a skilled team. We can make a lot of plays.”
Utah earned a 5-4 home win over the Maple Leafs on Oct. 13. The Mammoth scored four goals in the second period to build a 5-2 lead and withstood two Toronto goals in the third period.
“We know what went wrong, it’s the same thing that happened before,” Sergachev said. “We get down a couple goals and we’re trying to cheat the game a little bit and it bites us. We can’t change the way we are playing. We just need to push and simplify when we have the time and space to make a play.”