Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube stood up for Morgan Rielly when asked about the defenseman's struggles following a 3-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night. "Can Morgan play better?

“I’m playing with my food here a little bit,” the Florida Panthers’ veteran coach said.

The Toronto Maple Leafs remain without Matthew Knies, and his absence continues to impact the team’s results for the worse. The 22-year-old forward was placed on injured reserve (IR) retroactive to Jan.

The Minnesota Wild took care of business in their cross-conference matchup against the Toronto Maple Leafs. By a score of 3-1, the Wild took down one of the top

TORONTO — Jared Spurgeon and Marat Khusnutdinov scored in the first period, Filip Gustavsson stopped 31 shots, and the Minnesota Wild beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 on Wednesday night. Marcus Foligno added an empty-netter in the final minute as Minnesota won its second straight to improve to 3-5-0 in their last eight games.

Rielly is the only Leafs defenceman to play in all 51 games and he has 22 points. He’s on pace for 35 points in 82 games, a far cry from the 58 points he had in 72 games in 2023-24. And being taken off the top power play has to be a blow to his pride.

The Vancouver Canucks have made it clear, ‘there’s no good solution’ to keeping J.T Miller on the team after the NHL’s trade deadline on March 7. This begs a couple of questions.

The hot streak comes at at perfect time for Matthews and the United States. The center, who grew up in Arizona, will join Team United States for the 4 Nations Face-Off in Montreal and Boston from Feb. 12-20 and begin play against Team Finland at Bell Centre on Feb. 13 (8 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS).

Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning was named captain of Sweden. The other two assistant captains are Erik Karlsson of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Mattias Ekholm of the Edmonton Oilers. Finland was the first team in the tournament to name its captain and assistants on Thursday.

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"I feel good despite numbers," said Rielly, who has five goals and 17 assists for 22 points in 51 contests. "It's a battle right now. Just trying to compete and play the best I can."

Welcome back to NHL Predictions. Each day, Last Word on Hockey takes a look at the games that are scheduled and offers insight and analysis to help predict who will be victorious in head-to-head matchups.