The Vegas Golden Knights come to town tonight to take on our Maple Leafs, but that seems to be the secondary story of the evening as the Leafs have begun clearing house in preparation of the return of Zach Hyman and his $2.25M cap hit.

#Leafs placed Martin Marincin and Nic Petan on waivers at noon today

— Kristen Shilton (@kristen_shilton) November 7, 2019

It’s well known that the Leafs won’t be able to carry a full 23 man roster and stay cap compliant. It’s also been well documented that there could be a couple of tough decisions to stay under the cap, the most controversial of which would be to waive veteran centre Jason Spezza.

After waiving both of Petan and Marincin, the Leafs should only have to waive one more player. My guess is that Jason Spezza sticks with the team and it’s Nick Shore that hits the waiver wire. We won’t have to wait long to find out in any case.

In the meantime there is still hockey to play.

#Leafs lines at practice:

Johnsson-Matthews-Nylander
Moore-Tavares-Marner
Mikheyev-Kerfoot-Kapanen
Timashov-Shore-Gauthier
Spezza, Hyman, Petan

Marincin-Ceci
Muzzin-Barrie
Dermott-Holl

Andersen
Hutchinson

Rielly absent.

— Kristen Shilton (@kristen_shilton) November 6, 2019

As has been the case lately, Morgan Rielly wasn’t at practice, but will suit up for the game tonight.

Dmytro Timashov replaces Nic Petan on the 4th line, the rest of the lineup will stay the same after their “beautiful” win against the Kings.

Las Vegas 

Record: 9-5-2

PP%: 23.6% (7th in NHL)

PK%: 89.8% (2nd in NHL)

GF/GP: 3.06 (16th in NHL)

GA/GP: 2.88 (14th in NHL)

S/GP: 34.1 (5th in NHL)

SA/GP: 32.7 (23rd in NHL)

Toronto: 

Record: 8-5-3

PP%: 17.3% (20th in NHL)

PK%: 75.4% (26th in NHL)

GF/GP: 3.44 (7th in NHL)

GA/GP: 3.25 (21st in NHL)

S/GP: 31.6 (14th in NHL)

SA/GP: 32.8 (24th in NHL)

The basic team stats indicate that if this turns into a special teams game the Leafs will find themselves in a heap of trouble. Their PP and PK are both in the bottom 1/3rd of the NHL, while the Knights special teams units are in the top 1/3rd. The Leafs need to stay out of the box, and it might be a good idea to turn down any powerplays they do get considering how poor their PP has been lately, and the fact that the Knights are tied for first in the NHL with 4 goals at 4v5.

Frederik Andersen starts. He’ll face backup goaltender, and Toronto born, Malcolm Subban.