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Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews might actually be the easiest pre-scouting assignments for the respective staffs of the Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers in Saturday’s highly anticipated meeting.

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It’s trying to figure out what the rest of the band is up to on each team that presents a challenge.

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On Wednesday coach Sheldon Keefe again struck gold keeping Max Domi shifted from centre to left wing with Matthews and putting Tyler Bertuzzi on the right. It yielded the trio nine even-strength points in a 7-3 win over Washington and saw Bobby McMann, Matthew Knies and Nick Robertson moved around effectively.

Mitch Marner, Matthews’s steady right winger, has to get back into a practice or two before he returns, so Friday’s workout lines will be heavily scrutinized to judge if solo skates this week accelerate his return from a sprained ankle.

Regarding Toronto’s defence, TJ Brodie being a healthy scratch Wednesday and the physical effort put out by Simon Benoit the past couple of games in Ilya Lyubushkin’s absence, changes the look. In goal, though it would appear to be Ilya Samsonov’s start on Saturday, Joseph Woll stopped just about everyone not named Ovechkin in Washington. There’s a back-to-back in Carolina on Sunday for Keefe to consider changing the split or maybe even getting Martin Jones back in versus the Canes.

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The Leafs will be watching Edmonton’s Thursday home game against Buffalo to see how coach Kris Knoblauch utilizes key trade deadline pick up Adam Henrique. After time on the left side, Henrique centred Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Derek Ryan earlier in the week. The Oilers eventually must determine a third line pivot to augment the Connor McDavid — Leon Draisaitl 1-2 punch in playoffs, either Henrique or RNH.

The Leafs had a 2-0 lead in Edmonton on Jan. 16, before Draisaitl scored and McDavid assisted on Ryan McLeod’s 4-2 winner.
IRON MAN

Saturday will pit NHL goal leader Matthews (57) against top assist man McDavid (82). Head-to-head versus Edmonton, Matthews has 12 goals in 18 games, McDavid has 21 helpers in 22 against the Leafs.

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Matthews leads the pack in a more quirky category this year, hitting posts and crossbar. Sportsnet stats tracked a couple this week to bring Matthews to 16 pings, one short of the purported league record held by Steve Stamkos in 2010-11. That was the year Stamkos fell five goals short of a second straight season at 50.

Matthews, three shy of breaking his own franchise single season goal record, would be heading for 70 had even half those iron monger shots dropped in.

THREE TIMES TEN

The Leafs utilizing three or more goaltenders at times in the past 50-plus regular seasons has rarely resulted in a trio of them having good years in the win column during that same span. But with Woll’s 10th victory on Wednesday, Toronto now has a franchise first of three in double figures, with Samsonov’s 18 and Jones’s 11.

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In 1973-74, when the Leafs designated a three-man rotation all year with Doug Favell, Ed Johnston and Dunc Wilson, the latter came up a win short of the combined hat trick. In 2005-06, Jean-Sebastien Aubin joined the team late in the schedule and finished on a run of 9-0-2 after Ed Belfour won 22 and Mikael Tellqvist 10.

NHL stats lists the Hurricanes and Canucks with three 10-game winners last season, Vegas the year before, and the ’77-78 Bruins the first team to do it with Ron Grahame, Gilles Gilbert and Gerry Cheevers.

LOOSE LEAFS

Happy 84th birthday to Dave Keon on Friday, third in Leafs career goals and points, fourth in assists and games played … Jake McCabe had the only goal by a defenceman on Wednesday night, the Leafs and Caps going into the game tied at 92.1% for the highest production of goals by forwards in the league … Benoit had nine of Toronto’s 33 hits on Wednesday, five more as a team than playing fresher the night before in Philadelphia … Max Domi took time out on TNT and Sportsnet’s broadcasts to send condolences to Chris Simon’s family. Max’s father Tie and Simon tangled a few times in their playing days.

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X: @sunhornby

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