The Maple Leafs aren’t naive enough to think they’ll strike easily on their first shot on goal Thursday night, let alone against one of the top defensive teams in the NHL.

A statistical anomaly of the past three games is Toronto scoring on its first effort, which has happened only 15 times in league history, according to NHLStats, and is one short of the record held by the 2001-02 Tampa Bay Lightning.

And no team has had three defencemen do it on those opening salvoes, like Morgan Rielly, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Troy Stecher triggered the damage for Toronto.

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Don’t expect the Carolina Hurricanes to be intimidated. At 24.5 shots against per game, they have the Eastern Conference’s stingiest record in that department, keeping the

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