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SPORTSCENTRE Reporter

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TSN Toronto reporter Mark Masters checks in daily with news and notes from Maple Leafs practices and game-day skates. The Leafs held an optional skate at the Air Canada Centre on Monday morning. The Sabres held a regular skate.

Jack Eichel is back from a high-ankle sprain. Auston Matthews is back from a shoulder injury. Tonight the two good friends will finally face-off in Toronto. It will be their first meeting of the regular season and fifth overall in the NHL. 

“He’s a good dude and we’re buddies, but just not tonight,” Eichel said. 

Leafs head coach Mike Babcock made the point that Eichel "gets excited to play against Matty,” and the numbers seem to confirm that. In the four games against Matthews, Eichel has seven points versus just three, all goals, for his buddy. 

"We're both very competitive and don't want to lose to one another," Matthews told reporters after Sunday's practice. "It should be a good battle."

Eichel raised eyebrows during a preseason interview with the Toronto Sun noting, "Auston has a bit of a confidence and a swagger to him. He’s got a bit of that, ‘F--- you!’ mentality in him."

“It’s just kind of a quiet confidence I think he has in himself and rightfully so,” Eichel said this morning expanding on the thought. “It’s just something about him that makes him good. A lot of things do. It’s always good to see him have success.”

Eichel missed 15 games due to injury, but is still on pace to surpass his personal bests in goals and points this season. Despite the individual success, it has to be tough to see Matthews and the Leafs heading to the playoffs for a second straight season while his Sabres are again playing out the stretch. 

Does Eichel, whose rich eight-year contract extension kicks in next season, see signs of optimism on the horizon? 

“Yeah, I think you have to,” he said. “Obviously, I’m here for a long time and pretty invested in this team and this organization. So, obviously, you want to see the future and things get better and I think it starts with me so I have to be better and other guys in the room, we have to take it upon ourselves to change this thing.”

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The Leafs finished last in the NHL in Babcock’s first season behind the bench. Does he see any similarities between where the last-place Sabres are now and where Toronto was three years ago? 

“No, I don’t think at all,” he said flatly. “It’s not even close. They got way more pieces.”

One of those pieces will arrive later this week. Casey Mittelstadt, the MVP of the recent World Juniors in Buffalo, is set to sign with the Sabres and the 19-year-old could make his NHL debut as early as Thursday against the Red Wings. 

Kyle Okposo, who like Mittelstadt is a product of the University of Minnesota, was impressed with the teenager when he skated thrice weekly with him during the summer alongside other NHL players. 

“That’s the highest pace that I play in the summer and he was really impressive there,” Okposo said. “Guys on the bench were saying how special a player he was and how special his mind was for the game so that’s what really impressed me about him, just the way he was able to take over the game.”

What can the teenager, picked eighth overall last June, expect in the transition from the NCAA? 

“It’s pretty nerve-wracking, having done it myself,” Okposo admits. “You don’t really know what to expect and pro hockey is a lot different … but in the end it’s just hockey and that’s something I’ll remind him.”

 

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For Jake Gardiner, the playoffs can’t come soon enough. 

“Been waiting all year for it and kind of wish it started tomorrow, but just got to keep playing these games and try to get more points,” the defenceman said. 

The Leafs have seven games left and very little chance to make a move in the standings. But Babcock continues to stress that his group has to fine tune its game ahead of the post-season. 

“I thought the Red Wings, you know, they dominated us in the second period last game so we got lots of teaching out of that here this morning and I can tell you the Buffalo Sabres will be all we can handle here tonight,” he said. “They always are. They’re going to be above us. They’re going to play tight. They’re going to compete hard. There’s no team they’d rather beat than us.”

 

The Leafs could stumble down the stretch and then turn it on in the playoffs. After all, the Penguins went 4-4-3 in their final 11 games last season before claiming a second straight Stanley Cup. 

“Do you want to be in full panic mode going in hoping you're going to find your game or do you want to be feeling good about yourself?” Babcock asked rhetorically. “I try not to worry about any of that stuff, that's up to you guys. When you win today, everything is okay. When you're playing good today, everything is okay. You just try to get better each and every day.”

And yet, even the ultra-focused Babcock admits he’s keeping an eye on the race between Boston and Tampa Bay for top spot in the division. On Sunday night, he tuned in for part of the Bruins game in Minnesota. 

“I saw Boston make about 15 plays in two minutes on the power play so I just shut it off,” he said to laughs. 

Nazem Kadri is also intrigued by the Bruins-Lightning race to the finish. 

“It definitely makes things a little interesting,” he said. “Both are playing well right now.”

Does he have a preference about who he’d like to face? 

Kadri, known for his outspoken nature, breaks into a big grin. 

“That’s not happening,” he told reporters. “No, no. Either/or. They’re both good teams.”

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With the Leafs and Sabres facing off for the third time since March 5, some bad blood is to be expected. 

“We always have a rivalry even if it’s not the biggest implications,” Gardiner noted, “and you see Naz and (Rasmus) Ristolainen going at it a couple games ago and that’s just how it’s always been with us.”

Ristolainen and Kadri fought in the first game between the teams following a borderline hit by the Sabres defenceman. In the second meeting between the clubs on March 15 Kadri took a retaliation penalty against Ristolainen after another hit on him by the feisty Finn. But Kadri’s insists Ristolainen isn’t in his head. 

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I mean, if that’s a one-goal game or something like that I probably don’t take that penalty, but, obviously, you don’t want guys taking runs and liberties at you for free."

Kadri’s penalty came late in the second period with the Leafs up 4-1. It was the third straight penalty taken by Toronto, which turned an initial power play for the team into a five-on-three for the Sabres, which they capitalized on.

“Their power play has been good against our penalty kill the last couple of times,” Babcock noted. “If you remember, we got up in the game and then we took those silly penalties to go down four-on-three and five-on-three. We can't do that against good players.”

The Sabres power play is 3/7 against the Leafs this season.