So there’s that. It seems like Spezza’s strong game in Philadelphia might have been his last as a Leaf. We might as well deal with that first in the 5 things to watch for.

So Petan is out. Spezza is out. Marincin is out. Shore and Timashov are in. With Hyman possibly returning Saturday this could be the last day that this is one big happy Leafs family and right now it looks like Petan, Spezza, and Marincin are the favourites to be sent packing.

Timashov is pretty close to a lock for staying, and since Shore has been essentially the tandem 4C with Gauthier, it seems that’s how it’s going to be, although I want to strongly suggest that keeping Petan over Gauthier makes so much sense my eyes bleed, and for that matter, I don’t know why you wouldn’t keep Spezza over Shore as well, but we’ll take this for what it’s worth…

If I was the Leafs 4th line, I’d certainly not want to give any reason to Kyle Dubas to second guess the direction the team has been going in, but then again, just because Babcock likes playing Timashov, Gauthier, and Shore doesn’t mean that they are the favourites in the eyes of Dubas and he’ll be the one making this call.

The other fallout of Hyman’s looming return is that Trevor Moore could see a pretty significant slide from 1st line duty down to the 4th line. Such is the life of a role player, but given how good Moore has been I’m curious if his success puts targets on the backs of players like Johnsson and Kapanen, especially Johnsson, as Moore could allow Babcock to mirror the setup of the Tavares line on the Matthews line as well.

Worst case scenario we get a 4th line with Timashov and Moore which seems incredibly fun, even if they have a center who kills fun.

I’d like to see Moore go out with a bang tonight and send a message to the other Leafs wingers that he’ll be stealing jobs when they are slumping.

Nylander has had a pretty darn good year so far, with the exception of offensive output, but we got a bit more of that against LA. It would be nice if that was the opening of the floodgates and the end of the Nylander bashing era, but I’m not holding my breath, especially when the majority of the Toronto media is playing their favourite game, How to trade Nylander for pennies on the dollar.

Dermott hasn’t looked out of place, and in fact the Dermott-Holl pairing has been about everything you could hope for in a 3rd pairing. It seems in the coming days we’ll forget that Dermott missed camp and has been rehabbing an injury and we’ll start talking about whether he can play in situations beyond the sheltered role he’s presently in. This is a bit of a broken record because pretty much every year starts and ends with Dermott can be doing more than he’s presently doing and deserves a chance. Given that Barrie has been slumping and that Cody Ceci shouldn’t be playing in the NHL, let alone on the Leafs top pairing, I wonder if we’ll see right side Dermott revisited and if he’ll get a few shifts away from Holl in the near future.

Perhaps one of the reasons the Leafs don’t play with much of an edge and don’t line up to take retaliatory penalties when teammates are slighted is because their penalty kill is a disorganized mess and that will be something to watch for against Vegas, a team with a top six forward group that can punish you on the power play and a bottom six designed to agitate you into taking dumb penalties.

As for the Leafs on the power play, the drum that I will continue to beat is that Nylander and Barrie need to be put in positions where they can have some success, and if that the cost of that is splitting up Matthews and Tavares, well, so be it. It would be nice to see the power play turn the corner at the very least, as there is such a wealth of talent it’s hard to come up with excuses for why it’s not working, even though the answer seems to be connected to it’s predictability, lack of net presence, poor personnel decisions, and Rielly’s weak point shot (seriously, they didn’t let him take the point shot in Moose Jaw, why are they letting him do it at the NHL level?)