Line-up changes

[Fanatic]

James Mirtle says these are the lines tomorrow:

Lupul - Bozak - Kessel
Frattin - Connolly - Kulemin
Lombardi - Steckel - Crabb
Gardiner - Dupuis - Brown

Gunnarsson - Phaneuf
Franson - Schenn
Liles - Komisarek

Scrivens
Gustavsson

The injured: Reimer, Armstrong, Grabovski, Orr, MacArthur
Scratched: Rosehill

Add it up, and there are 26 bodies, but the Leafs get down to 23 by virtue of having James Reimer, Colby Armstrong and Grabovski on injured reserve. MacArthur may soon join them there once the team gets more information about his injury, and at that point, there could be a call-up made.


So Gardiner is going to the wing?

 

[maplesyrup]

Interesting to see JG on the wing. Bold move... I like it.

 

[Deebo]

Interesting to see JG on the wing. Bold move... I like it.

To me it says that Brown and Dupuis will be getting PK time and Gardiner will get PP time and that all 3 will see very little, if any, ES time.

 

[Bender]

Interesting to see JG on the wing. Bold move... I like it.

I'd like to see Kadri up if they could make it work.

 

[maplesyrup]

Interesting to see JG on the wing. Bold move... I like it.

To me it says that Brown and Dupuis will be getting PK time and Gardiner will get PP time and that all 3 will see very little, if any, ES time.

That certainly is possible. Maybe even likely but I have to say, I'm intrigued by what JG's wheels might do in a spot duty assignment among the forward ranks. 

 

[Mikhail Bloodnovsky]

Interesting to see JG on the wing. Bold move... I like it.

I'd like to see Kadri up if they could make it work.

Putting JG on the wing instead bringing up Kadri says a lot about Kadri at this point.

 

[maplesyrup]

Interesting to see JG on the wing. Bold move... I like it.

I'd like to see Kadri up if they could make it work.

Putting JG on the wing instead bringing up Kadri says a lot about Kadri at this point.

I don't think that's a statement about Kadri personally.

 

[cw]

James Mirtle says these are the lines tomorrow:

Lupul - Bozak - Kessel
Frattin - Connolly - Kulemin
Lombardi - Steckel - Crabb
Gardiner - Dupuis - Brown

Gunnarsson - Phaneuf
Franson - Schenn
Liles - Komisarek

Scrivens
Gustavsson

The injured: Reimer, Armstrong, Grabovski, Orr, MacArthur
Scratched: Rosehill

Add it up, and there are 26 bodies, but the Leafs get down to 23 by virtue of having James Reimer, Colby Armstrong and Grabovski on injured reserve. MacArthur may soon join them there once the team gets more information about his injury, and at that point, there could be a call-up made.


So Gardiner is going to the wing?

link
Here's my best guess at this point at what the Leafs lineup will look like, keeping in mind that Wilson wants all seven defencemen dressed (for the first time this season) and that Ben Scrivens will make his sixth start in the last seven games:

So by Mirtle's admission, he is guessing to some extent.

Wilson may be playing games as well to keep Nashville guessing.

I don't know why Gardiner would be playing forward ahead of Rosehill ... here come the Gardiner (Kaberle) at center rumours !  ;D

 

[maplesyrup]

I don't know why Gardiner would be playing forward ahead of Rosehill ... here come the Gardiner (Kaberle) at center rumours !  ;D

Like I said, in spot duty, I say, "why not?" I think the difference with the Kaberle thing is I said, "why?" If than makes ant sense.  :-\

 

[Fanatic]

Thanks cw. I did not see the Mirtle piece myself. I got in an email going around at work among Leafs fans and I assumed it was reliable. But now I see that this is Mirtle's assumption.

 

[bustaheims]

Putting JG on the wing instead bringing up Kadri says a lot about Kadri at this point.

I disagree. To me, it says they don't expect MacArthur to miss much more than this one game.

 

[Deebo]

Putting JG on the wing instead bringing up Kadri says a lot about Kadri at this point.

I disagree. To me, it says they don't expect MacArthur to miss much more than this one game.

Yea, with Grabovski going to the IR and Connolly coming off, there is no room for a call-up if MacArthur's injury is short term.

I bet Kadri gets the call if Clarke will be out long enough to put him on IR.

 

[Erndog]

I don't know why Gardiner would be playing forward ahead of Rosehill ... here come the Gardiner (Kaberle) at center rumours !  ;D

Like I said, in spot duty, I say, "why not?" I think the difference with the Kaberle thing is I said, "why?" If than makes ant sense.  :-\

I get you, and I don't necessarily disagree (or care for that matter) but this begs the question...

Why even have Rosehill/Orr on the roster? 

If we aren't going to ever use them, and we're going to throw D-men up front, or call up guys like Crab, etc... why even both having Rosehill and/or Orr? Much less both of them.

 

[Deebo]

I don't know why Gardiner would be playing forward ahead of Rosehill ... here come the Gardiner (Kaberle) at center rumours !  ;D

Like I said, in spot duty, I say, "why not?" I think the difference with the Kaberle thing is I said, "why?" If than makes ant sense.  :-\

I get you, and I don't necessarily disagree (or care for that matter) but this begs the question...

Why even have Rosehill/Orr on the roster? 

If we aren't going to ever use them, and we're going to throw D-men up front, or call up guys like Crab, etc... why even both having Rosehill and/or Orr? Much less both of them.

I can't think of players in the organization I'd rather have as regular healthy scratches than Orr and Rosehill.

 

[maplesyrup]

I don't know why Gardiner would be playing forward ahead of Rosehill ... here come the Gardiner (Kaberle) at center rumours !  ;D

Like I said, in spot duty, I say, "why not?" I think the difference with the Kaberle thing is I said, "why?" If than makes ant sense.  :-\

I get you, and I don't necessarily disagree (or care for that matter) but this begs the question...

Why even have Rosehill/Orr on the roster? 

If we aren't going to ever use them, and we're going to throw D-men up front, or call up guys like Crab, etc... why even both having Rosehill and/or Orr? Much less both of them.

I can't think of players in the organization I'd rather have as regular healthy scratches than Orr and Rosehill.

Yeah, pretty much that.

 

[Tigger]

Yeah I can see having one of them available but not both, cw's mentioned that might be about protecting Orr, it doesn't make a lot sense in terms of the roster alone.

I'd also give Gardiner the next game off, see if he has a reset button available too.

 

[L K]

I don't know why Gardiner would be playing forward ahead of Rosehill ... here come the Gardiner (Kaberle) at center rumours !  ;D

Like I said, in spot duty, I say, "why not?" I think the difference with the Kaberle thing is I said, "why?" If than makes ant sense.  :-\

I get you, and I don't necessarily disagree (or care for that matter) but this begs the question...

Why even have Rosehill/Orr on the roster? 

If we aren't going to ever use them, and we're going to throw D-men up front, or call up guys like Crab, etc... why even both having Rosehill and/or Orr? Much less both of them.

I can't think of players in the organization I'd rather have as regular healthy scratches than Orr and Rosehill.

Sure, but if you are going to carry both of them, it gets you stuck in positions like this.  No offense to Gardiner, but he has not played well since about the 5 game mark of the season.  He makes a lot of rookie mistakes and his positive plays usually come at the expense of the rest of his game.  He needs time to learn when to pinch/when to stay back and play defense. 

On the flip side, Kadri has put up 7 points in his last 6 AHL games and you can't call him up (even for just 1 game) because Rosehill and Orr need to sit in the pressbox.  Honestly, it makes no sense to have both of them there because they are both useless players who barely can handle 4th line duty and it prevents short term (1-week) roster moves when someone gets hurt in the top-6/on defense.

 

[Mikhail Bloodnovsky]

Who cares if its only 1 game for Kadri. I heard that one of the big reasons of moving the AHL team to the big city was precisely that.

 

[bustaheims]

Who cares if its only 1 game for Kadri. I heard that one of the big reasons of moving the AHL team to the big city was precisely that.

And, if it was a home game tomorrow, then maybe that would play into it. Also, that would also require the Marlies to not be on the road, which they also are.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The lines at practice today were:

Kessel-Bozak-Lupul
Kulemin-Connolly-Crabb
Lombardi-Steckel-Brown
Rosehill-Dupuis

Frattin and Orr were both absent. Apparently Orr is sick, no word on why Frattin wasn't there. The fourth line practiced without a 3rd forward. I think that if Wilson was planning on playing Gardiner on the 4th line he would have given him a day in practice to adjust a little bit. Odds are Frattin will enter the line-up on the 3rd or 4th line and bump either Crabb or Brown to the 4th line.