Leafs, seeking club-record eighth successive road victory, face off with Wild

The Toronto Maple Leafs will be going for a team-record eighth consecutive road win Saturday night when they play the Minnesota Wild in St. Paul, Minn.

The Maple Leafs, who are on a fivegame winning streak overall, have won 15 of their past 17 after trouncing the visiting Colorado Avalanche 8-3 on Wednesday behind Auston Matthews’ fourth career hat trick.

They will be facing a high-scoring Minnesota team that has won five straight after defeating the visiting New Jersey Devils 5-2 on Thursday night.

Toronto has won seven consecutive road games during three other seasons – 2002-03, 1960-61 and 1940-41.

“We have a really good sense right now of the way we need to play,” Maple Leafs captain John Tavares said. “You just never feel settled or comfortable. You want to keep going and understand what is bringing you success.”

Before defeating Colorado, Toronto had completed a four-game trip with the final three of the games on the West Coast.

Sometimes teams struggle in their first game back after a long trip, but the Maple Leafs started quickly on Wednesday. William Nylander scored 4:31 into the game and they led 3-1 after the first period.

“I liked our start for sure,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We thought we needed to start quickly in the game and, obviously, playing with the lead is important.”

During practice on Friday, Mitch Marner and Jake Muzzin collided during a drill. After a heated exchange between the two, Marner left the practice early with a trainer.

“Precautionary,” Keefe said. “We’ll see how he is in the morning. It’s not looking like anything serious at this point. He’s going to travel and all that stuff and prepare to play.”

As for the exchange, Keefe said: “I was told there was a little bit of an exchange. … but, especially those two guys, I don’t worry about that kind of stuff at all. Things happen out there. … Our team’s really close and that kind of stuff will be shaken off pretty quickly.”

Ondrej Kase (upper-body injury) could return Saturday for Toronto.