That means expanded opportunities are in store for the likes of Michael Bunting, David Kampf, Alex Kerfoot, and Pierre Engvall, all of whom should see more ice time at the left wing and center positions.
Montreal is facing a little bit of adversity themselves early in the season with the indefinite absences of Carey Price and Shea Weber as well as the day-to-day injury status of their biggest offseason addition up front in Mike Hoffman. Paul Byron is also out long term after undergoing hip surgery in late July.
Unsurprisingly, Dominique Ducharme will be trotting out a balanced-looking forward group that is well-suited to rolling four lines:
La formation du CH à l'entraînement
Toffoli-Suzuki-Caufield
Drouin-Dvorak-Anderson
Armia-Evans-Gallagher
Perreault-Paquette-LehkonenKulak-Petry
Chiarot-Savard
Romanov-Wideman— Alexandre Gascon (@GasconAlexandre) October 13, 2021
The Leafs, too, will need a good amount of depth involvement from the likes of Engvall – Kampf – Kase and Simmonds – Amadio – Spezza without their 20+ minute stud center in Matthews and potentially their 20+ minute, all-situations winger in Marner, although the forecast seems positive on Marner’s likelihood of participating tonight.