Acquired in a big trade with the St. Louis Blues on Friday, Maple Leafs forwards Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari were in the air on Saturday morning headed to Toronto.
Despite switching teams just hours ago, Toronto Maple Leafs forwards Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari are scheduled to be in the lineup when the team hosts the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday.
"Both were adamant about playing tonight," Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said of his conversation with the new players. "They were excited to get right in, so for that reason we'll get them right involved."
Where will they play?
Keefe was excited to learn of the deal late last night. He was driving home from his son's hockey game when he learned the news and said it was difficult to sleep from the excitement of the deal.
"You just get so many options now, it's such an abundance of depth at center," Keefe said. "We can do lots of different things. There's people we can move from center to win, including the guys we have acquired and that gives me lots of options, so I suspect between now and the end of the regular season we'll try a number of different things and just try to get a feel for A) what's our best mix and B) potential adjustments and mixes that we can throw out depending on what the game or opponent calls for."
Playoff experience
Keefe was particularly excited about what's O'Reilly will bring to the group.
"There's certain players that you can say seem like a playoff guy and you can say there are guys that are playoff guys, he’s done more than enough in the playoffs and not just in the year he wins the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe,” Keefe said. “He’s one of the rare guys that actually has a higher points per game in the playoffs than he does in the regular season.
O'Reilly has 22 goals and 34 assists in 64 career playoff games for a PPG of 0.875. His PPG all-time in the regular season going into Saturday's contest is 0.707.
Respect for Acciari
While O'Reilly was the star name to come out of the trade with the Blues, Acciari's two-way game should help the team solidify their bottom-six.
Keefe said the players were excited to hear about Acciari's inclusion in the deal.
"When you hear the excitement from them, that speaks to how much they respect his game and how hard he is to play against," Keefe said.
The Leafs saw a lot of Acciari during their 2018 and 2019 first-round playoff battles with the Boston Bruins.
Different from previous years?
Keefe has had a full compliment of players join the team near the trade deadline over the years without losing roster players. in 2021 the team acquired forward Nick Foligno and last year they acquire defenseman Mark Giordano and forward Colin Blackwell.
But Keefe feels this year is nothing like those years.
"This is different because you've got a guy with such great versatility and great pedigree in particular at the most important time of the year in the playoffs," Keefe said of O'Reilly. "When you put all of that together, it's very exciting.