SPORTSNET.CA
Defencemen Carlo Colaiacovo, Jonas Frogren and Ian White will be healthy scratches for the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday when they take on the struggling Tampa Bay Lightning at the Air Canada Centre.
Sportsnet’s David Bastl has learned Vesa Toskala will start in goal for Toronto and the defence pairings will consist of:
Pavel Kubina – Jeff Finger
Tomas Kaberle – Luke Schenn
Anton Stralman – Mike Van Ryn
Up front, the Leafs forward lines will be:
Matt Stajan – Nik Antropov – Alexei Ponikarovsky
Mikhail Grabovski – Nikolai Kulemin – Niklas Hagman
Dominic Moore – Jason Blake – Alexander Steen
John Mitchell – Ryan Hollweg – Jama Mayers
Meanwhile, the Lightning will be seeking more from their offense Tuesday.
After Tampa Bay (1-3-3) finished with the fewest wins in the league last season, the team seems to be picking up where it left off in 2008-09.
The Lightning opened with a franchise-record five straight losses before rallying for a 3-2 win over visiting Atlanta on Tuesday, but faltered again Saturday in a 3-0 home defeat to San Jose.
Mike Smith made 42 saves to improve his save percentage to .941, but the effort went to waste wasn’t as the Lightning managed only 22 shots and endured their second shutout in three games.
“We’ve got to figure out what’s going on with this team,” new coach Barry Melrose said.
Smith and offseason acquisition Olaf Kolzig have held opponents to 18 goals, but Tampa Bay has a league-low 11 of its own.
“It was very embarrassing,” Melrose, back behind the bench after a 13-year absence, said Saturday. “Our goaltending has been great every game. But we’ve scored 11 goals in seven games. It doesn’t take Albert Einstein to figure out that’s not enough.”
Vincent Lecavalier led the Lightning with 40 goals and 92 points last season, while Martin St. Louis posted a team-high 58 assists and was second with 83 points. The pair has totaled four goals and five assists thus far, and was held to a combined four shots versus the Sharks.
The man advantage hasn’t helped, either. Tampa Bay has scored on only three of its 32 power-play opportunities.
Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs (3-2-3) have killed off seven straight and 17 of their last 19 penalties, including two in a 3-2 victory over visiting Ottawa on Saturday.
Dominic Moore, Mikhail Grabovski and Alexei Ponikarovsky each scored, while Vesa Toskala made 22 saves to help the Maple Leafs win their second straight and earn at least a point for the fifth time in their last six games.
“I would say that was our smartest game so far,” said Toskala, who improved to 3-1-2 with a 2.61 GAA in seven starts.
Toskala is 2-1-1 with a 1.74 GAA in four starts versus Tampa Bay.
Smith stopped 23 of 25 shots in his lone career appearance against Toronto – a 3-2 overtime win at home on Feb. 29 – and Kolzig is 4-2-0 with a 1.84 GAA in his last six games versus the Maple Leafs.
Tampa Bay plays seven of its next eight games on the road, where it went a league-worst 11-24-6 last season.
The Lightning split four games with the Maple Leafs last season, but have dropped six straight in Toronto.
Lecavalier has nine goals and 23 points in his last 15 games against the Maple Leafs, while St. Louis has eight goals and 25 points in 30 career matchups with Toronto.
