Game Time! Leafs vs Isles

                                   

Complementary to Cam’s wonderful game preview from earlier (that you better read or you smell), here’s some essentials for tonight’s game.

As many reported (we’ll give credit to James Mirtle), Joffrey Lupul is expected to miss six weeks with a broken arm, and has been placed on the IR. Well that sucks big time, however, one player’s fall is another’s chance to rise. Who got the call-up? Matt Frattin.

Many thought Frattin should have made the team out of camp instead of, let’s say Colton Orr, but this is his chance to shine. It made little sense to keep Frattin on the team as a fourth-liner playing 5-10 minutes per game. Now with Joffrey Lupul out long term, Frattin will have to rise to the occasion, along with the rest of the Leafs’ offence.

Also of note, it seems the NHL boycott has been somewhat of a flop.

As of yet, I haven’t found a source <em>confirming</em> the Leafs&#8217; starter, but Ben Scrivens was first off the ice this morning, indicating he should probably be starting. It only makes sense. He gave back-to-back solid performances in the Leafs&#8217; first to games, and Reimer played last night.</p> <p>I also haven&#8217;t been able to find Leafs lines for tonight, which is usually a Twitter frenzy whenever they go up. I&#8217;ll assume Frattin gets inserted into Lupul&#8217;s slot on a line with Kadri and Komarov, but that&#8217;s a guess. With an injury as impactful on the team as Lupul&#8217;s, I would not be surprised to see some line juggling.</p> <p>As for the Islanders, John Tavares usually feasts on the Leafs offensively. Outside of him, this tweet stole the thought right out of my head.</p><div class='ad-injection'></div> <p>&nbsp;</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p>Casey Cizikas hasn&#8217;t scored a goal yet?Oh he&#8217;s from Toronto? Guaranteed goal tonight.. probably the game winner. <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23TMLtalk">#TMLtalk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23leafs">#leafs</a></p> <p>&mdash; Jack G (@acmtml) <a href="https://twitter.com/acmtml/status/294567842454589441">January 24, 2013</a></p></blockquote> <p> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">