Toronto Maple Leafs: The Ins and Outs of Hockey Juggling
The Toronto Maple Leafs will have two (semi) new faces in tonight’s lineup.
Yes, you’ve already read that the Toronto Maple Leafs will have a slightly different lineup for when the Philadelphia Flyers come for a visit, but you haven’t read my thoughts on it yet.
Not that my thoughts are super important or anything like that, but another perspective doesn’t hurt.
James van Riemsdyk went down rather awkwardly during the LA Kings game last Monday night and even though he stayed in the game and appeared fine, Mike Babcock has decided to rest him tonight.
If van Riemsdyk were 100%, he wouldn’t be resting, but why take a chance of further injury?
Just think of this as a precautionary thing.
For these players, playing is their job and they’ll fight for their job just like any of us would fight four ours, so if an apparent injury means that they shouldn’t play, they’ll probably do whatever’s necessary to ensure that nobody’s going to be taking their spot in the lineup, meaning they’ll play through their injury.
That kind of thinking stems out to the ongoing concussion talk among past players and the NHL, all legal talk, but not something we have to venture into.
Then we have Matt Martin who will also be out of the lineup tonight with an upper-body injury, nothing serious at this point either.
Let’s go deeper.
The Ins and Outs
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According to Kristen Shilton, van Riemsdyk and Martin are mad at Babcock (understandably) because they want to play, but it was the right time to sit a couple guys and it just worked out medically that it would be those two.
It’s really just a day off for them and they’re both expected to play Monday night against the San Jose Sharks.
In other news, before I tie in who’s going to be replacing van Riemsdyk and Martin tonight, Eric Fehr has been loaned to the Toronto Marlies after some brief thought that he might rotate in on the wing and Connor Brown is expected to play in his 100th career NHL game tonight, Dave McCarthy has a good quote from him.
It’s awesome, it was a dream of mine all the way up to try to get in this League and stick and it’s a tough League. Day in and day out, I’m excited to be a part of it and so especially being a Toronto Maple Leaf, a hundred games here, it’s been a dream come true.
The last point worth noting is that Nolan Patrick of the Flyers will not be playing tonight as he’s out with an upper-body injury.
I’m not going to lie, I was excited to watch him play.
Lines
Here are the forward lines for tonight.
Zach Hyman – Auston Matthews – William Nylander
Patrick Marleau – Tyler Bozak – Mitchell Marner
Leo Komarov – Nazem Kadri – Connor Brown
Josh Leivo – Dominic Moore – Kasperi Kapanen
Alright, this is an interesting makeup and to make things easier, I’ll just start with the top bolded names and work my way down the list.
Marleau’s going to jump up and play with Bozak, which makes sense because he and van Riemsdyk are similar in some regards, so throwing someone in like that will serve Bozak well and then on his right side, he’ll have a familiar face in Marner as he rejoins the ranks.
If Marner plays well tonight, I’d say he has a good shot at leaving the fourth line.
As for the third line, we get the privilege of seeing one of the more consistent lines from the 2016-17 season play together again as Komarov slides back over to the left, with Brownie on the right.
That should be fun to watch, but let’s be honest, all eyes will be on the fourth line tonight.
Season Debuts
Josh Leivo makes his much anticipated season debut, suiting up on Moore’s left side, as does Kaserpi Kapanen, but on the right side.
Kappy was brought up from the Marlies (waiver exempt) this morning.
A lot of you are probably happy to see Martin sitting a game and I’m not going to lie, he’s the only one that makes sense in order to bring up Kapanen for a game, so let’s see how this kid does tonight.
I’m still a big Martin fan, so don’t think that this is me declaring my unfaltering love for Kapanen and dropping Martin like a bad habit or anything like that, I did just write how he’s been doing well lately.
The puck drops at 7 PM, live from the Air Canada Centre, be there.