The Toronto Maple Leafs hope to get back in the win column, as they take on the suddenly red-hot Colorado Avalanche at Air Canada Center on Tuesday.
The Avs have won three straight games with forward Matt Duchene and goaltender Reto Berra leading the way. Duchene had eight points and earned NHL First Star of the Week and Berra has filled in admirably for injured goalie Semyon Varlamov, allowing only three goals in three wins over Philadelphia, Boston and Montreal.
Colorado will be without team captain Gabriel Landeskog, who is serving a two-game suspension for a head hit on Boston’s Brad Marchand.
Toronto will make three changes from the lineup that lost at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
Brad Boyes will step in for Nick Spaling, after an undisclosed injury limited the Leafs center from taking faceoffs in New York on Sunday. Martin Marincin will return to action for the first time since November 4th, taking the place of rookie Scott Harrington.
The other is goalie James Reimer starting in place of Jonathan Bernier, who struggled mightily in a 4-3 loss to the Rangers. Bernier has an 0-7-1 record is suffering a crisis of confidence and is not 100% healthy, which means that Reimer may get a long look as the go-to guy over the next few weeks.
Jonathan Bernier says he expects James Reimer to be "playing for a little awhile."
The table appears to be set for Reimer to take over the starting goaltending duties after going 5-1-1 during Bernier’s stint on injured reserve, but the 27-year-old has failed to display consistency whenever given the opportunity at being the number one goalie over the past few seasons.
If Reimer continues to perform as the primary starter as he did during Bernier’s stint on IR, Babcock will undoubtedly continue to go to the pending unrestricted free agent, which could potentially cause a quandary later in the season as the trade deadline approaches.
If his level of play returns to what it was prior to the month of November, you will see Bernier being given another opportunity to be the main guy in goal.
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Maple Leafs top prospect Mitch Marner was a standout in the fourth game of the Canada-Russia series in Windsor, ON on Monday.
The 18-year-old fourth overall pick was named Player of the Game, playing on Team OHL’s top line with 2014 first rounder Michael Dal Colle and Kingston’s Spencer Watson and assisting on Watson’s game-winner in the second period.
Marner has 11 goals and 21 assists in 16 games and is fourth in Ontario Hockey League scoring behind Erie Otters forward Alex Debrincat and London Knights teammates Matthew Tkachuk and Christian Dvorak.
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Veteran winger Joffrey Lupul leads the Maple Leafs with seven goals in 18 games, playing mostly on a checking line with veterans Daniel Winnik and Nick Spaling and has been able to stay healthy after spending two long stints on injured reserve last season.
According to ESPN’s Craig Custance, Toronto may be able to use Lupul’s return to productivity to trade the 31-year-old winger, but two remaining years on his current contract and a $5.25 Million salary could be big hurdles.
Custance points out that the Leafs may have to retain salary to make a Lupul deal possible and that they have already used two of their three retentions on Phil Kessel and Carl Gunnarsson, but Gunnarsson’s deal in St. Louis expires at the end of 2015-16, which would open up one spot.
It is very possible that Toronto would agree to retain salary on Lupul if the return was sufficient, since the length of the contract is two years as opposed to Dion Phaneuf’s contract, which still has five years left after this season.
Lupul’s contract could be more attractive to budget teams, since the combined cap hit of the final two years($5.25M x 2 = $10.5M) is significantly more than the actual money paid out($5.25M + $3.75M = $9M) and retaining $1.5 Million for the life of the deal would be the same cap hit as a buyout of the veteran winger after the season, but two years less.
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