Toronto Maple Leafs Put Potential Opening Night Roster on Display

The Toronto Maple Leafs will play against the Canadiens in a preseason matchup tonight.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are 2-3 so far this preseason, and tonight’s game will be the sixth of eight on the schedule.

The opening night to the season is next Wednesday against the Senators.

Ahead of the game the Leafs made six cuts to their roster.  They were as follows: Nicholas Baptiste, Joseph Duzak, Mac Hollowell, Jesper Lindgren, Colt Conrad, and Kristians Rubins.

Toronto Maple Leafs Opening Night Lineup.

I don’t think any of those guys had a realistic shot of making the lineup, but it is nice to see Duzak and Hollowell hang on for a while, since they may end up being needed sooner than later if the Leafs have another massive year of turnover on their blue line.

Still in camp are the likes of Rich Clune, and Mason Marchment, though they are also not likely to make the team.

Here are the lines the Toronto Maple Leafs are thought to be using in tonight’s game against the Canadiens:

This looks like what we’ll probably see next week when the games count for real.  I really like Kapanen on that second line, and it will be interesting to see if he can steal Hyman’s job while he is injured.

The third line is very intriguing and while I can’t promise it will end up being good, it does appear to have a lot of upside.

The fourth line would have surprised me before camp, because I assumed that Frederik Gauthier would be the odd man out, but he’s had an excellent training camp.

I really like the looks of this fourth line, even if I haven’t really seen enough of Timashov to form an opinion on him yet.  I was hoping Nic Petan would make it, especially after the game he had the other night, and who knows, maybe he still will.

I think Petan has excellent offensive skills that could really dominate against fourth line competition, but I suppose that remains to be seen.  I have no problems with using Timashov, and I think it’s fantastic that they’ve got (barring anyone lost on waivers) Wilson, Shore, Aberg, Agostino and Petan to use for depth.

Babcock is gonna be Babcock, so you can’t really do anything but hope he knows what he’s doing, but I would really like to have seen a Petan – Shore – Agostino fourth line.

As for the defense, it looks awesome, and they’re only going to get better with the eventual addition of Travis Dermott.  If Cody Ceci can be the player he was in the first game I watched him play, then this could be a very, very strong group.

It goes without saying that I’m ecstatic about Rasmus Sandin making the team.

The opening night lineup – if that’s what this is – looks great.