They're getting right back to it. The Toronto Maple Leafs are hosting the New York Islanders in the second half of a season-opening back-to-back after their unfortunate 3-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens in their season opener on Tuesday. Instead of sticking with the same lineup, head coach Jim Hiller is going to make one little swap.
After morning skate on Wednesday, Hiller mentioned that 26-year-old forward Bo Groulx will be coming into the Leafs lineup against the Islanders. He did not mention who will be coming out, and we'll have to wait until closer to puck drop to find that out.
Jim Hiller says Bo Groulx draws in tonight for Leafs ... not revealing who will be out
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) September 30, 2026
Anthony Stolarz starts against the Islanders @TSN_Sports
Whether it is due to trying to manage fatigue or just purely performance based, we can certainly think of some players who could very well be coming out of Toronto's lineup, and more specifically in the bottom six.
Who will be coming out of the Leafs lineup?
The change in personnel is almost certainly going to be coming from the Leafs' fourth line. While we can guess that just based on the fact that Groulx is not on the level of the forwards in Toronto's top nine and will be coming in for a fourth-line role no matter what, there are some candidates to be swapped out.
The most obvious one is winger Zack MacEwen. While he did provide some nice physicality against the Canadiens, he certainly isn't a driver of offense or defense and is really there to just bring the muscle and maybe punch a couple faces. Groulx is certainly not that guy, but he could be a big help in making that fourth line work a little bit better at controlling play.
We also wouldn't be surprised if it was Brandon Duhaime coming out. The other fourth-line winger, he got involved in a couple scrums and can certainly skate better than anyone on his line, but again, that line didn't look like they really gelled together quite yet. Since it was three brand new Leafs all playing together in the first game of the season, we maybe shouldn't have expected any different. Groulx would at least provide some familiarity.
It's not like the trio had a whole lot of time to get settled. The fourth line of Duhaime, MacEwen, and Teddy Blueger were out there for a total of 3:45 time-on-ice and during that time, they faced three shot attempts against and generated zero for Toronto. A perfect line for nothing to really go on.
We don't expect the inclusion of Groulx to up that ice-time number by a significant amount, but maybe he can be relied upon to do a little bit more with the puck than the player he's coming in for.
Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m. at Scotiabank Arena as the Leafs look for their first win of the season.
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