The Toronto Maple Leafs have one final chance to post a rare road victory as they look to "capture" their "playoff series."
It won't be easy since they have to face a surging team that just had a club-record win streak broken in heartbreaking fashion.
The Columbus Blue Jackets have won four straight at home and look to avoid a season sweep Wednesday night by a Maple Leafs club that has dropped seven in a row on the road.
Toronto coach Peter Horachek decided before a March 28 home game with Ottawa to treat the final seven games as a best-of-seven series. His club has taken three of the first five, including Sunday's 3-2 shootout victory over the Senators.
"We've played five games out of the seven," Horachek said. "We're up three games to two if you look at it series-wise."
The Maple Leafs, though, have gone 0-6-1 in their past seven on the road and 1-20-3 away from home in 2015.
Ending those woes won't be easy since Columbus (39-35-5) just missed extending its win streak to 10 with Monday's 4-3 overtime loss to the New York Rangers. The Blue Jackets gave up the tying goal with 28 seconds left in regulation.
"That's the best team in the league and we had them 3-2 until 30 seconds left, so take a lot of good things from the game, get better and move on," forward Matt Calvert said.
The performance against the powerful Rangers wasn't anything surprising. Seven of the victories in the streak came against teams that currently hold postseason spots.
"Columbus is red-hot," Horachek said. "They lose in overtime but they won nine in a row before that and they are a hard-working team. All four lines work and they grind and they come at you."
Ryan Johansen has a team-high 11 points over the last 10 games while Cam Atkinson, Nick Foligno and Scott Hartnell are tied for the team lead with five goals in that span. Brandon Dubinsky has seven points in a five-game run.
They'll take aim at James Reimer, 0-11-1 with a 3.49 goals-against average in his last 13 road starts. Reimer has yielded eight total goals in losing both career starts against the Blue Jackets.
Toronto (30-43-7) has outscored Columbus 9-3 in winning the first two 2014-15 meetings. Its top line of Phil Kessel, James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak has totaled 10 points in those contests.
That unit has 17 points in the last five games, and van Riemsdyk has scored in his last three.
"They've been pushing hard and creating a lot of offense," Horachek said. "I think they're pushing hard to get us into a position where we're doing the things we want to do."
Columbus is expected to start Sergei Bobrovsky, who made 38 saves Monday as his eight-game win streak in which he posted a 2.33 GAA was snapped. He faced at least 40 shots for the fourth time in his last nine games.
Bobrovsky has gone 6-1-0 with a 1.86 GAA in his last seven starts against Toronto.
