Leafs not ruling out having Bozak back at centre
If Tyler Bozak can stomach it, he’ll be back at centre for the Maple Leafs on Wednesday against the Calgary Flames.
Grounded by a bad case of food poisoning the day before the Leafs played in Vancouver on Saturday, Bozak returned to practice Tuesday, but coach Mike Babcock is waiting for the game day skate before abandoning Plan B, to move William Nylander to centre.
“I had quite a bad case and I was throwing up for a few days,” Bozak said. “I thought I was over it, came to the rink (Monday) and when I got here, it started again and I went home. Hopefully, I’m over it. It’s been a tough few days, now I have to get my energy back.”
Bozak’s seven points the past 24 games after opening the season with one in three straight represents one of his driest runs. At times coach Mike Babcock broke up his long standing line partnership with winger James van Riemsdyk.
“They’re not the numbers I wanted personally, but the way the team has performed as a group has been pretty good,” Bozak said. “It’s a long season and you’ll have stretches where everything goes in for you and everything doesn’t. This one has gone a little longer, but you can have one good month and be back in it. I’m not worried too much.”
Leading scorer Auston Matthews and Babcock have both pointed out Bozak’s absence in Vancouver left the team without a right-handed centre on draws.
“That was one of Bozie’s big strengths in the past and the new (face-off positioning) rules haven’t helped him much,” Babcock said. “We needed him to get back to that form. Being a dominant faceoff guy really helps him, he gets a lot off offence in the O -zone out of that.
“We’ll see what happens. I told Willy to be ready if we need him (the right winger practiced with van Riemsdyk and Mitch Marner on Monday). Over time, we’ll just keep working Willy down low in practice, so when it’s time he can just jump in and play centre.”
The Leafs won two of three in Western Canada last week, losing 2-1 in Vancouver and now set to play the Flames and Oilers again at home, sandwiched around a Saturday road game in Pittsburgh.
The Leafs are on the verge off scoring 100 goals and are sitting just out of first place in their division , almost 20 goals ahead of last year’s pace. But, don’t expect the emphasis on defence to wane. Matthews plays with Zach Hyman and Connor Brown, relentless checkers who mesh well with Matthews’ commitment to improve as a twoway centre.