The Toronto Maple Leafs are preparing to take on the New York Islanders at home; however, they will be doing it without a familiar face. The organization announced that John Tavares is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
Now, with Tavares out and a lack of center depth, the Maple Leafs will need to fill a large hole in their lineup, and that lack of depth is starting to show. This could be the weak spot in their lineup, aside from the blue line.
So, let's see how the lineup against the Islanders, with puck drop set for 7:00 p.m.
Maple Leafs projected lineup
Jack Roslovic -- Auston Matthews -- William Nylander
Easton Cowan -- Nick Paul -- Kirill Marchenko
Gavin McKenna -- Colton Sissons -- Bo Groulx
Brandon Duhaime -- Teddy Blueger -- Zack MacEwen
Morgan Rielly -- Troy Stecher
Jake McCabe -- Darren Raddysh
Oliver Ekman-Larsson -- Nick Blankenburg
Sergei Bobrovsky
Anthony Stolarz
Scratched: Marshall Rifai
Injured: Dakota Joshua (core), Max Domi (undisclosed), Chris Tanev (upper body), John Tavares (lower body)
Islanders projected lineup
Matias Maccelli -- Bo Horvat -- Simon Holmstrom
Brayden Schenn -- Cal Ritchie -- Victor Eklund
Emil Heineman -- Jean-Gabriel Pageau -- Anthony Duclair
Ondrej Palat -- Casey Cizikas -- Kyle Palmieri
Logan Stanley -- Matthew Schaefer
Adam Pelech -- Ryan Pulock
Matt Kessel -- Tony DeAngelo
Ilya Sorokin
Semyon Varlamov
Scratched: Kyle MacLean, Scott Mayfield
Injured: Mathew Barzal (knee), Alexander Romanov (torn right ACL)
Maple Leafs lineup changes
As we head into the game tonight, all eyes are on Gavin McKenna. After being benched halfway through the second period, he only played 6:36 in the entire game. Of course, in a hockey market as hot as Toronto, it became headline news right away and rightfully so. There wasn't anything that stood out from McKenna's game that should have benched him.
In fact, it didn't seem like Jim Hiller knew why he benched him either. After the game, he spoke to the media and had this to say:
"“We had those penalties. I wanted to get him out there; he sat through the penalties, and then I didn’t get him out there through that stretch,” head coach Jim Hiller explained. “And then the last few minutes of the period, we were just trying to get out of the period, I guess you would say, and now I’ve sat him for so long, and he sits in the intermission. So, I probably should’ve got him out there early in the third. I didn’t, so I’ll talk to him about that.”"Jim Hiller
The hope is that McKenna will get more of an opportunity tonight, especially with Tavares out of the lineup. He should get a chance on the top power play unit as well as a spot within the top six, rotating shifts with Easton Cowan. Hiller needs to be mindful that he doesn't ruin McKenna's confidence, so he should try to get him more ice time tonight and right the wrong that happened the other night against the Buffalo Sabres.
Other than that, there are no other lineup changes that were made for the game tonight against the Islanders.
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