The Maple Leafs have the benefit of a light schedule that will enable head coach Randy Carlyle to get a week of practices in hopes of remedying their defensive shortcomings and tinkering with line combinations in the wake of injuries to centers Dave Bolland and Tyler Bozak.
Bozak suffered a hamstring injury on October 25 in Columbus and will be unavailable to come off LTIR until November 21 and Bolland is out indefinitely with a punctured left ankle tendon. With these injuries causing a sizable hole up the middle, Carlyle moved winger James van Riemsdyk to center between Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul.
While this move has been necessitated by injury, it is something that has long been in the mind of the Leafs coach since the lanky American forward was acquired from Philadelphia for Luke Schenn in June, 2012.
“I have talked to Randy….where he(van Riemsdyk) plays and with whom he plays is up to the coach.” Former GM Brian Burke said just after the deal was made. “He has played a fair amount of center in his career, he was a center until he turned pro(played center for two seasons at the University of New Hampshire). I envision him mostly on the wall, but if Randy wants to try him in the middle, that’s fine too.”
Carlyle admitted that the possibility of moving the 6’3” 200lb forward to the middle intrigued him, perhaps to give him the same matchup advantage he had in Anaheim with big center Ryan Getzlaf.
“He’s a big man and we’re going to try him playing in the middle for us.” Carlyle said in July 2012. “It’s always nice to have a 6-foot-plus center in your top six. We feel there is an opportunity to explore him at center.”
The coach backed away from those statements later and after the lockout ended in January, with a shortened training camp and regular season schedule, the club decided that it was the wrong time to toy with a position change.
“We thought about it back then, but just the way that things unfolded that we were never really pressed into having to try it.” The Leafs coach reflected on Monday after practicing at the Air Canada Center. “When we came back, we slotted some people together and we replaced (van Riemsdyk) due to Lupul’s injuries and then he kinda found a spot with Kessel and Bozak.”
While it outwardly appears that the Leafs will give this move a try, it is also possible that they are doing it to alleviate any attempts of other NHL teams to take advantage of Toronto’s dire situation up the middle.
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TSN’s Darren Dreger reported Monday that Toronto GM Dave Nonis was making calls around the league in hopes of acquiring a forward(preferably a center), but that the trade market was rather thin at the moment.
According to Dreger on TSN 1050’s Leafs Breakfast Tuesday morning, Nonis is not limiting his scope to a hole plugging move until Bozak and Bolland return, but that they are open to a bigger deal that would yield a top six forward in exchange for a package of prospects and draft picks and mentioning Buffalo, Florida, New Jersey, Anaheim and Los Angeles as possible trade partners.
It is only natural for opposing GM’s to be slightly more unreasonable and raise their asking price if a team is desperate for help, so while the van Riemsdyk shift could end up being a short term answer to the Leafs center woes, it could very well be a bit of subterfuge that allows Nonis to trade for a player without overpaying for him.
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