At yesterday's practice, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe made a subtle change to the forward lines. Ryan Reaves appeared to be on the outside looking in, while Bobby McMann took his place on the fourth line alongside David Kampf and Noah Gregor. Today at practice, however, it was Reaves skating with Kampf and Gregor, while McMann skated as a defenseman with Max Lajoie on the fourth pairing, indicating that he may be the 13th forward and scheduled to sit tomorrow in Ottawa.
With Keefe unhappy with how practice was on Wednesday, reportedly having scolded the team with a profanity-laced outburst, it will be interesting to see what his final lineup decision for tomorrow is. One thing we do know is that Joseph Woll will get the start for the sixth straight game as Ilya Samsonov continues to be sidelined with the flu.
The rest of the forward lines and D pairings appeared to be shaping up identically to what they had run on Saturday against the Bruins, so it's a pretty good indicator that there won't be more than the one decision still to make on the 4th line.
Keefe did this type of thing with the goalies a few times last year as well, as a way of keeping the media and their opponents guessing. Reaves may seem like a relatively inconsequential piece to either dress or not dress, but as we have heard so many times from a number of Leafs this season, Reavo is a good character guy, so perhaps having him on the bench for what should be a very rough Battle of Ontario isn't a bad thing.
