The Toronto Maple Leafs will have to make some adjustments and rely more on others in their lineup with team captain John Tavares out for a minimum of two weeks with a
broken finger.
At their practice facility in Etobicoke, ON on Friday, the Leafs prepped for their first of four meetings with the archrival Boston Bruins at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday and head coach Mike Babcock chose to keep two of the club’s forward lines intact and mix up the second and third lines.
Auston Matthews continued to play with Andreas Johnsson and William Nylander on the first line, and the fourth line of Dmytro Timashov, Frederik Gauthier and Nick Shore remained intact, but Mitch Marner was shifted to play with Alex Kerfoot and Ilya Mikheyev, and veteran center Jason Spezza replaced Tavares up the middle in between Trevor Moore and Kasperi Kapanen.
Nylander also replaced Tavares on the first power play unit with Marner, Matthews, Johnsson and Morgan Rielly.
“We spent the full day (tinkering with the line combos). I got everybody’s input and they all sent it to me and everyone had a different theory and then we walked through all the options.” Babcock said. “Nothing is set in stone, we did the pre-scout on Boston, watched Boston last night, said ‘ok, what are we going to do, how’s it going to go?’ and try to give yourself the best opportunity.”
Babcock has been impressed with Kerfoot’s speed and tenacity through his first month in Blue and White and is looking to see if he can step up his playmaking and defensive game with more ice time, while the Leafs head coach sees Spezza playing between the speedy Moore and Kapanen as a chance for the 36-year-old to have more of an impact with more talented linemates after being relegated to fourth line duty through training camp and the first eight games of the regular season.
“It’s an opportunity for guys.” Babcock said. “As a team, we’ve got to get better. I think we’re a better team than we’ve played, I think we’re way better defensively than we’ve shown and we have to show that. Everyone is getting an opportunity, (there were) a whole bunch who probably wanted more ice time, now they get more ice time.”
The Leafs may be getting a bit of a break in that the Bruins are dealing with their own series injuries. According to Hockeybuzz’s Ty Anderson, center David Krejci and winger Joakim Nordstrom did not travel to Toronto for Saturday’s contest and that Patrice Bergeron is dealing with a lower-body injury and will be a game-time decision, but that does not mean that beating Boston will be any less challenging, since they always raise their game against the Leafs.
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