A ton of action on Tuesday night in the NHL with 12 games and six Canadian teams on the go.
Here are a look at some of the storylines we’re following.
TORONTO VS. EDMONTON A.K.A. KADRI VS. MCDAVID
The two-game season series between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers is set to conclude on Tuesday night.
The Leafs edged out the Oilers at home back on Nov. 1 with a 3-2 overtime victory, but the story remained the battle between Connor McDavid and Nazem Kadri.
Head coach Mike Babcock gave Kadri the task of shutting down the 2015 first-overall pick and matched them up as often as he could.
Suffice to say … it worked.
Not only did Kadri hold McDavid off the score sheet, but he scored two goals of his own including the overtime-winner on which he out-muscled McDavid for a beautiful finish.
Tonight the Oilers are looking for revenge.
Edmonton has home-ice advantage, and therefore last change, so they’ll surely look to avoid the matchup that cost them the first game, while Babcock will be searching for creative ways to stick Kadri on the Oilers captain again.
Unfortunately for Kadri and the Leafs, there may not be a player around who can stop McDavid right now.
On Nov. 19, the 19-year-old burst out of his scoring slump with a hat trick over the Dallas Stars. Since then, he has added another two goals and five assists for a total of 10 points in his last five games.
SLUMPING CALDER FAVOURITE LOOKS TO TURN THINGS AROUND
A panel of 13 writers on NHL.com recently voted for Calder favourites through the quarter mark of the season, and the second-overall pick in the 2016 draft, Patrik Laine, came out on top.
The Winnipeg Jets forward may be leading the race over other NHL rookies such as Zach Werenski and Mitch Marner, but he has been ice-cold as of late.
Laine has zero points in his last four games, and has not been able to put the puck in the back of the net since Nov. 15 against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The six straight games he has gone without a goal is the longest drought of his short career, with the previous high being a four-game stretch between Oct. 28 and Nov. 3. During those four games he also failed to register a point.
When he finally snapped out of that funk and got his name on the scoring sheet, he did so in stud-like fashion. In the three games following the slump, Laine scored five goals — including a hat trick against the Dallas Stars — and added two assists.
Laine will have a fantastic opportunity to break his slump on Tuesday night when the Jets host the New Jersey Devils.
The Devils have allowed at least four goals in each of their last five games.
NEW ERA BEGINS IN FLORIDA
Tom Rowe, the general manager for the Florida Panthers, shocked the hockey world on Sunday night when he fired head coach Gerard Gallant.
Florida wasn’t off to the best of starts (nor were they off to a bad start) and compiled an 11-10-1 record. Rowe pulled the trigger to fire Gallant and inserted himself as the interim coach for the rest of the season.
Now, Rowe is set to lead the fifth-in-the-Atlantic Panthers Tuesday night and he does so with a tough task at hand.
The Panthers continue on their six-game road trip with a stop in Chicago to take on the Blackhawks. Florida is 4-6-1 while sitting on the visitors bench this season, and Rowe is going to need to turn that record around quickly to quell the critics who are calling out this head coaching change as a mistake.
To make matter worse, Tracey Myers of CSN Chicago is reporting that captain Jonathan Toews may be returning on Tuesday night.
The Panthers conclude their road trip with the Detroit Red Wings, the Ottawa Senators, the Boston Bruins, and the Philadelphia Flyers.
BOBROVSKY CONTINUES TO CARRY
The Columbus Blue Jackets have played 20 games so far this season. Sergei Bobrovsky has started 18 of them.
The team’s Twitter account has projected that he will start yet again on Tuesday night when Columbus hosts the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Blue Jackets have seen a resurgence this year after missing the playoffs last April. A big part of this turnaround has been the breakout of centre Alexander Wennberg and rookie Zach Werenski, but the biggest factor comes from between the pipes in Bobrovsky.
He has compiled an impressive 11-5-2 record paired with a .929 save percentage and 2.15 goals-against average. Those numbers are extremely close to his 2013 numbers (.932 save percentage, 2.00 goals-against average), when he won the Vezina Trophy.
Bobrovsky will look to continue his stellar play against the Lightning, a team who he surrendered three goals against.
He is currently on pace to play 73 games this season, a number last reached by Braden Holtby in 2014-2015. Bobrovsky’s career high in games played in a season is 58 in 2013-2014.
JACK’S BACK
The Ottawa Senators are hosting the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night as the two teams prepare to play each other for the third time this season. In each of their first two games, the road team has prevailed.
Ottawa has been better at home this season (8-4-1) and the Sabres have been better on the road (4-5-2).
The Senators are enjoying a fantastic start to their season as they have won 14 of their 22 games which has put them in second place in the Atlantic Division.
The Sabres, on the other hand, have not experienced similar success. Through 21 games this season, they have a 7-9-5 record, and are second-last in the Eastern Conference.
A major factor in the Sabres’ slow start has been the loss of the second-overall pick in the 2015 draft. Jack Eichel went down with an ankle sprain in pre-season and has not yet seen a game of NHL action this year.
Luckily for Sabres fans, Eichel he’s returning tonight.
The franchise player will look to make an immediate impact in a hope to turn around a struggling Sabres team.