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The Toronto Maple Leafs were able to put forth an excellent effort a 4-1 victory over St. Louis on Tuesday with a patchwork lineup, as they did not have the services of forwards Mitch Marner and John Tavares (illness), and defenseman Morgan Rielly (suspension).
The Leafs take on the Philadelphia Flyers at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday and will have some of their top players back. Head coach Sheldon Keefe indicated that Tavares and Marner have recovered and will be available and that William Nylander, who also fell victim to the flu that took Marner and Tavares out of the lineup against the Blues but stayed in the lineup, will play on Thursday.
Toronto is in a race for third place or one of the two wildcard spots with Tampa Bay and Detroit, but also have to factor in Metro Division opponents like the Flyers, who have 64 points (two more than the Leafs). The advantage that Toronto has at this point is games in hand over their immediate opposition. They have three games in hand over Tampa Bay, and one or two games on Detroit, New Jersey, and the Islanders.
Ilya Samsonov will start and with Martin Jones still dealing with an undisclosed injury, Dennis Hildeby will be the backup. Joseph Woll, who has been out since early December, has practiced this week, but the Leafs are taking a very careful approach in his recovery from a high-ankle sprain.
“We are taking it a day at a time and communicating with him about how he is feeling. I think he continues to feel better and better each day.… Keefe said on Wednesday. “In terms of participating in games, he is getting to the point where we can have those discussions and start to map it out a little bit. (GM Brad Treliving) has been a little distracted here of late, so we haven’t had a chance to really nail down some of these things, but I think we are getting close there.
Other than dealing with the appeal of the five-game suspension to Rielly, Treliving has also been dealing with the leadup to the March 8th trade deadline. The Leafs GM was in Buffalo for the Sabres-Blues contest on Saturday afternoon and AGM Ryan Hardy was at Key Bank Center on Tuesday for the Buffalo-LA Kings contest.
The Sabres have a collection of pending unrestricted free agents, including veteran blueliner Erik Johnson, who would improve the Leafs defense, but the two Atlantic rivals have not made a major deal since 2009 when Toronto dealt center, Dominic Moore, to the Sabres for a second-round pick.
The potential of a minor deal involving a penalty-killing forward like Eric Robinson or Zemgus Girgensons is possible.
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