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Leafs slip up in loss to Avalanche, Gauthier sent down, Kapanen recalled |
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After placing Morgan Rielly on injured reserve and calling up Rinat Valiev from the AHL to be the seventh defenseman during the club’s road swing to Chicago and Dallas prior to the All-Star break, the Toronto Maple Leafs made a move to tinker with the 23-man roster, demoting center Frederik Gauthier to the Toronto Marlies and recalling winger Kasperi Kapanen.
This is the third call up for the 21-year-old Kapanen, who had a six-game scoring streak and registered 10 points (4G, 6A) in 11 games for the Leafs AHL affiliate since being sent down on Boxing Day.
Gauthier played nine straight games after being recalled on January 2nd and scored one goal, had a face-off winning percentage of less than 50% and did not make as much of an impact as Mike Babcock would have liked.
The head coach may have been looking for the 22-year-old to provide the big-bodied presence on the fourth line that Brian Boyle showed in his limited stay with Toronto last season, but “The Goat” was barely noticeable at times and on Monday, the line with Matt Martin and Mitch Marner were on the ice for two goals in the Leafs 4-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday at Air Canada Centre.
The game was a setback after their victory over Ottawa on the weekend, as the club's blueline without Rielly and Nikita Zaitsev in the lineup made some questionable defensive miscues and their forward lines were unable to seize on a number of offensive opportunities on goaltender Jonathan Bernier.
"I thought (the Matthews) line dominated all night long, they could have had lots [of goals]. I thought (the Kadri) line was really good, played head-to-head with those guys and ended up scoring and did a heck of a job." Babcock said after the game."We turned the puck over on the one goal – I'm trying to think of the other one – a line change there on the first, but we did lots of good things."
It was a rough night for defenseman Andreas Borgman. On Gabriel Bourque’s opening goal in the first, the rookie blueliner vacated his left defense spot and left the Avs forward wide open to collect Frederik Andersen’s rebound.
Toronto rebounded in the second, as Patrick Marleau fired a blast past Bernier 19 seconds into the middle frame to tie it and Auston Matthews scored his 21st of the year after having a goal waved off for goaltender interference, but had the momentum stolen away after another Borgman miscue.
Borgman fanned on a pass in the neutral zone that allowed Alex Kerfoot to steal the puck and set up former #1 overall pick Nail Yakupov for the tying goal.
At the MasterCard Centre on Tuesday, Babcock kept his defensive pairings the same, but scrambled his forward lines, inserting Kapanen on the fourth line with Leo Komarov and Dominic Moore and promoting Marner to the second line with Patrick Marleau and Nazem Kadri.
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