Preseason LGD: A Farewell to Marlies

Looking at the lineup card tonight you can’t help but feel cut day is looming. It seems like Mike Babcock has been reading my On the Bubble series and tried to make a lineup entirely out of the players we’ve featured there.

Anyways, a lot of players have to be taking this as their last chance to stick around the Leafs, and hopefully we’ll see them play like their jobs depend on it tonight against Montreal.

I mean, I’m excited about that Borgman-Holl pairing. That’s something I’d like to see on opening night. Please let me have Borgman and Holl on opening night. That “top line” is the line that looks to be a lock for the Leafs bottom line opening night, so tonight we’ll get an idea of what it would be like if they played more than 6 minutes a night. Beyond that we’re probably getting our last look at a few of our favourites. Grundstrom and Sandin will be missed, and we are dangerously close to waivers day which is a given for Subban, Jooris, Cracknell, and Marincin, but it seems a lot of hearts will break if Holl or Carrick suffer the same fate.

Can one of the zillion Leafs writers in the press box tonight please teach the Habs guys how to tweet out lines? I don’t think I’m asking for a lot here.

I love that the Canadiens use Comic Sans for their lineup card. Seems even they realize what a joke they are.

The only analysis needed here is the their roster is bad and that’s good because their fans deserve it.

The Habs are going with Niemi to start, while the Leafs continue to see which of McElhinney or Sparks will emerge as the favourite. If we’re going by the preseason, McElhinney is keeping his job, but it’s not as simple as that. Also, if we’re assuming that Pickard has a shot at the backup role, and the preseason matters, we’ll see Pickard win the spot to start the season, but this will probably be the last decision made in camp.

The game starts just after 7:30 PM ET, and is on TSN 4. I don’t think anyone will blame you if you skip this game. The lineup is a watered down version of the Marlies championship roster. At least we’ll get some cuts soon.