Toronto's win over San Jose was still a decent response from a banged-up team. The Sharks scored the only goal of the 1st, and the Leafs came back with 1 in the 2nd and 2 in the 3rd for a 3-1 win. Doing that without Tavares and Tanev on home ice is one thing. Doing it on the road a night later, with a backup in net and Nylander a game-time call, is a different ask.
Columbus's problem is goals. The Blue Jackets scored 1 goal in regulation across their 2 weekend games, and in Minnesota they traded goals with the Wild in the 1st and then didn't score again. The Wild played with a thin blue line and still protected a 1-goal lead for an entire period against them. The board has Columbus as a home favourite, and a team that just went that quiet on offence has to prove it deserves that price.
The Blue Jackets are also playing without 2 regulars on defence. Ivan Provorov is on injured reserve, and Dante Fabbro is on IR as well and now expected to miss at least a month, so the hope of getting him back this week is gone. Isac Lundestrom is on long-term injured reserve, labelled month-to-month. Jet Greaves has been the steady part of this team in net, and with this blue line he'll need to be again.
Then there's Marchenko. He comes back to Columbus as a Maple Leaf with 4 goals and 10 points in 10 games, and the building will have something to say about it. For a Blue Jackets team that hasn't been scoring, a former teammate producing on the other bench is the storyline they'd rather not have handed to them. If Nylander can't go, Toronto leans on him even harder.
Toronto's case comes down to whether a short roster can keep finding late goals on tired legs with Stolarz behind it. Columbus's case is the rest gap and home ice, set against a defence that is now waiting a month on reinforcements. If the Blue Jackets can't score early, the travel stops mattering, and the Leafs proved against San Jose that they can come from behind.