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Joffrey Lupul makes his return at a game where the Leafs need to stop the bleeding or else risk playing their way out of a playoff spot in the span of five games (should the Rangers win their back to back games Monday-Tuesday; Leafs don’t play against until Wednesday).

The Leafs will have to try to ignore the result and take the positives forward from the loss to the Pens. From the standpoint of offensive zone time generated and limiting scoring chances, the Leafs played a really solid 53 minutes, and that was pretty much the opposite of what they did against the Jets the game prior.

Tonight’s projected lineup courtesy of Jonas Siegel is after the jump.

Certainly that third line looks good on paper. Should be fun to see what Lupul and Kadri can accomplish together, though expectations should be tempered for Lupul’s first game in a month and a half.

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Alec Brownscombe is the founder and editor of MapleLeafsHotStove.com, where he has written daily about the Leafs since September of 2008. He's published five magazines on the team entitled "The Maple Leafs Annual" with distribution in Chapters and newsstands across the country. He also co-hosted "The Battle of the Atlantic," a weekly show on TSN1200 that covered the Leafs and the NHL in-depth. Alec is a graduate of Trent University and Algonquin College with his diploma in Journalism. In 2014, he was awarded Canada's Best Hockey Blogger honours by Molson Canadian. You can contact him at alec.brownscombe@mapleleafshotstove.com.