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The Toronto Maple Leafs have whittled their roster down to a more manageable 36 players after their 5-4 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens at Scotiabank Arena on Monday. A game where the Leafs iced a lineup more representative of what will be starting against the same Habs club in eight days.
John Tavares tallied twice, Noah Gregor, and Max Domi scored for Toronto, who squandered a 4-3 lead with 41 seconds left in regulation when Josh Anderson scored with the extra attacker on the ice and lost on Nick Suzuki’s game-winner 31 seconds into overtime.
It was a strong night for Gregor in his bid to make the Toronto roster after being invited on a PTO, and defenseman Timothy Liljegren with a pair of assists in over 23 minutes of ice time, but in spite of scoring four goals the Leafs appeared out of sync defensively against a less talented Montreal squad motivated by losing two times on home ice.
The club as it normally does late in training camp traveled to Gravenhurst, ON for some team bonding before embarking on the final leg of the exhibition schedule, a home-and-home with the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday at Little Caesars Arena and Saturday at Scotiabank Arena.
Prior to the game and on Tuesday, the Leafs made three rounds of cuts to reduce their roster to 35 players.
Forwards Nick Abruzzese, Joseph Blandisi, Max Ellis, Roni Hirvonen, Braeden Kressler, Robert Mastrosimone, Dmitri Ovchinnikov, Jay O’Brien, Neil Shea, Logan Shaw, Tate Singleton, Josiah Slavin, Alex Steeves, Keenan Suthers, Ryan Tverberg, Ty Voit, Tyler Weiss, defensemen Nolan Dillingham, Matt Hellickson, Topi Niemela, Matteo Pietroniro, Marshall Rifai, Jonny Tychonick, William Villeneuve, Tommy Miller, Spencer Sova, and goaltenders Luke Cavallin, Dennis Hildeby, and Slava Peksa, and Keith Petruzzelli were either sent to back to the Marlies minor league camp or returned to junior club.
Of the 35 players, five (Dylan Gambrell, Mark Giordano, Calle Jarnkrok, John Klingberg, and Bobby McMann) are out injured, two are slated to be placed on LTIR (Matt Murray and Jake Muzzin), and one (Conor Timmins) was listed as week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
Although the Leafs have been holding their cards close to the vest on the status of their injured players, Jarnkrok is expected to play one of the remaining preseason games against the Wings, Klingberg being held out with upper-body injury is not expected to extend into the regular season, and Giordano has been held out for extra rest before the regular season.
Timmins week-to-week diagnosis on Monday has to be greeted as good news as there were some fears that the knee injury suffered on Friday could be long-term.
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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