The Toronto Maple Leafs take to the road for the first time against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Friday, but their lineup will have a slightly different look from the one that opened the season with a 5-3 win over the Ottawa Senators.
Head coach Mike Babcock indicated that he plans to rotate some of his depth forwards and defensemen early on to see what combinations work the best. This is likely being done as motivation to keep players on their toes and is not unprecedented in Babcock’s tenure in Toronto.
Two years ago, the Leafs played Eric Fehr (4 games), Frederik Gauthier (9 games), and Dominic Moore (50 games) at fourth line center prior to the acquisition of Tomas Plekanec at the trade deadline. Defensively, Calle Rosen (4 games), Connor Carrick (47 games) and Andreas Borgman (48 games) rotated until midway through the season, when Travis Dermott was called up from the Toronto Marlies and when Roman Polak was fully recovered from a leg injury.
After surprisingly being scratched for the home opener on Wednesday, Babcock will insert veteran Jason Spezza into the lineup in place of Nick Shore, winger Nic Petan instead of rookie Dmytro Timashov, and Justin Holl for Martin Marincin.
“When we made our decisions on our lineup, you like to say that everything is set in stone and you know exactly what you're doing.” Babcock said on Thursday. “But that's not necessarily true so over this time, we'll figure out maybe there's someone playing for the Marlies that’s in the mix that we didn't consider what will or didn't prioritize is highly right at that time, so we'll just see what happens on the next bit.”
Toronto plays the first of their 13 back-to-back games this season against Columbus, who are dramatically different from the club that swept Tampa Bay last April in the first round before losing to Boston in six games.
Sergei Bobrovsky (Florida), Matt Duchene (Nashville), Artemi Panarin (New York) and Ryan Dzingel (Carolina) have all departed, but the Blue Jackets still have a good group of forwards led by Cam Atkinson and Pierre-Luc Dubois and blueline with Seth Jones and Zach Werenski.
Joonas Korpisalo will get the opening night start for Columbus and Frederik Andersen will go for the Leafs after making 23 saves on Wednesday for his first victory of the season.
With Andersen starting on Friday, it likely means that backup Michael Hutchinson will be between the pipes on Saturday against Montreal at Scotiabank Arena, allowing the Leafs starter two full days of rest before Toronto’s next game against the Stanley Cup champ St. Louis Blues on Monday.
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