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The Toronto Maple Leafs play back-to-back games west of the Mississippi prior to the NHL Christmas break and made a roster move to provide some insurance in case of injury or illness.
The club recalled center Byron Froese from the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League and placed injured forward Ben Smith on injured reserve. Smith sustained an upper body injury in the Leafs 2-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.
Rookie Frederik Gauthier was recalled on Monday to take Smith’s place on the fourth line with Matt Martin and Josh Leivo and struggled in a 3-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks, losing key draws that led to power play goals from Ryan Getzlaf and Cam Fowler.
Froese, 25, has 17 points (12 goals, five assists) in 26 games with the Marlies this season (second only to Kasperi Kapanen on the Leafs AHL affiliate) and played 56 games with the Maple Leafs in 2015-16.
This move was likely necessitated by the uncertainty of the health status of not only Smith, but of veteran Tyler Bozak. The 30-year-old center was on the ice for Jake Gardiner’s overtime winner on Saturday, but suffered a lower body injury at some point during the contest that would not allow him to play against Anaheim.
The addition of Froese would allow the Leafs to move rookie William Nylander back to right wing, if head coach Mike Babcock was concerned about the 20-year-old playing up the middle on the road against the opposition’s top center, but would mean that Toronto would have a group of Auston Matthews, Nazem Kadri, Froese and Gauthier up the middle.
With Bozak out, it is likely that rookie and leading scorer Matthews will get more time playing against Colorado’s top line centered by 2013 top pick Nathan MacKinnon or Avalanche leading scorer Matt Duchene.
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