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When the Toronto Maple Leafs emerged from the All-Star/bye week break, Auston Matthews appeared close to being fully back from the strained knee that occurred on January 25th against the New York Rangers. On Tuesday, the Leafs center was a full participant at practice at the Ford Performance Centre in Etobicoke, ON.
"I felt good. I think everything's just moving in the right direction, so it was nice to kind of get back on the line and run through a full practice and just kind of try to get the timing back." Matthews said. "(I'm just waiting to) see how everything responds (Wednesday) morning and see how I'm feeling. For myself, I'm just trying to get the mindset (and) anticipation of playing and go from there."
Matthews skated on a reunited top line with Michael Bunting and William Nylander, almost exact to the three-week time frame reported by the club. Head coach Sheldon Keefe was not pleased with his club’s effort after a 4-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, and made changes to the lines based on Matthew’s return, but also due to the squad’s spotty play against the club with the league’s worst record.
Alex Kerfoot shifted to the wing with John Tavares and Mitch Marner, Calle Jarnkrok moved to the checking line with David Kampf and Pierre Engvall, and the fourth line unit was comprised of Zach Aston-Reese, Pontus Holmberg, and Joey Anderson.
On defense, the top unit of Morgan Rielly and TJ Brodie remained intact, but Mark Giordano was reunited with Timothy Liljegren, and Conor Timmins took the place of Justin Holl on the right side with Rasmus Sandin, after Holl went -3 against Columbus and was caught way out of position on Kirill Marchenko’s tying goal.
"I've been wanting to get Timmins in and becomes harder to do when we're healthy on the back. He's done a good job for us." Keefe said. "I've talked to Justin at different times and I felt his game at times has been tremendous, and has helped us through some real tough times of injuries and he's been a real constant for us on defense and because of his contributions, but at times it's also slipped and to me, the other night was one of those nights."
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Rumor Bulletin Board
Between now and the deadline, we will provide bullet-point updates on rumors involving the Leafs.
On the recent “32 Thoughts… podcast, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman indicated that the Leafs, Boston Bruins, and Calgary Flames have interest in Vancouver defenseman Luke Schenn, and that interest in the former Toronto first-round pick picked up after Schenn was scratched last week, but Friedman suspects that Leafs GM Kyle Dubas may have the acquisition of a forward higher on his list of priorities.
In a piece in The Athletic, Pierre LeBrun asked a number of NHL executives about the Leafs and what they should do at the deadline.
The general consensus was that the Leafs could use size and experience in their bottom six and bottom pairing, but others advocate bigger moves for Ryan O’Reilly or Timo Meier. It does not sound like anyone expects the Leafs to deal top prospect Matthew Knies or their 2023 first round pick, while LeBrun thinks that Dubas will opt for more conservative options like Chicago’s Jake McCabe and/or the Blues Ivan Barbashev.
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