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For those watching this game with an eye on draft positioning:

It’s been tough sledding of late watching the Leafs play, to say the least; the meaninglessness of the game as far as playoffs go and the fact that it was a classic Jersey game tempted the clicker finger of even the most devout Leafs fans last night.

And we’re still in late January with 30+ games to go. With the 16-25-6 Coyotes on the docket, the combined playoff odds in this matchup are just as low as last night.

At the same time, with Phaneuf out, seeing Rielly and Gardiner in serious-minute territory (Gardiner was just shy of 27 minutes, Rielly 24 and a half) at least provides some future-oriented silver lining/evaluative benefit. Both played good games last night, with Rielly in particular having a shift to rest one’s head on in overtime.

The Leafs are expected to get Joffrey Lupul back in the lineup tonight, and one wonders if this is the last stretch in which we’ll see him wear Leaf uniform. Lupul always provides a lift to this group when he returns from injury (an all too frequent occurrence), but on the wrong side of 30, with endless injury problems, making $5.25 million, and carrying some decent value given his production, the writing seems to be on the wall.

That’ll be a tough day for me as a fan, personally. Upon arrival in Toronto Lupul’s always produced and always cared, and his big finish to the season was a major part of, sadly, the only bright spot of the past 10 years in Leafland — making it to the first round of the playoffs in the lockout shortened season.

Arizona Coyotes Projected Lines

Tobias Rieder – Antoine Vermette – Shane Doan
(7-6-13) – (11-20-31) – (10-17-27) (28g, 71pts TOT)
Martin Erat – Martin Hanzal – Sam Gagner
(7-14-21) – (7-16-23) – (7-15-22) (21g, 66pts TOT)
Brandon McMillan – Kyle Chipchura – David Moss
(1-2-3) – (3-6-9) – (0-2-2) (4g, 14pts TOT)
Lucas Lessio – Brendan Shinnimin – Lauri Korpikoski
(1-1-2) – (0-0-0) – (4-9-13) (5g, 15pts TOT)

Keith Yandle – Michael Stone
(4-26-30) – (2-8-10) (6g, 40pts TOT)
Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Zbynek Michalek
(12-10-22) – (1-6-7) (13g, 29pts TOT)
Andrew Campbell – Connor Murphy
(0-1-1) – (3-3-6) (3g, 7pts TOT)

Mike Smith
(7-20-4, 3.49GAA, .889SV%)
Mike McKenna

Scratched: Chris Summers, B.J. Crombeen, Brendan Shinnimin
Injured: Mikkel Boedker (spleen), Joe Vitale (upper body)

Maple Leafs Projected Lines

Leo Komarov – Nazem Kadri – Phil Kessel
(5-13-18) – (13-14-27) – (19-25-44) (37g, 89pts TOT)
James van Riemsdyk – Tyler Bozak – David Clarkson
(21-21-42) – (14-19-33) – (10-5-15) (45g, 80pts TOT)
Daniel Winnik – Peter Holland – Mike Santorelli
(3-16-19) – (8-8-16) – (9-17-26) (20g, 51pts TOT)
Joffrey Lupul – Trevor Smith – Richard Panik
(9-8-17) – (1-2-3) – (7-1-8) (18g, 28pts TOT)
David Booth
(1-1-2)

Korbinian Holzer – Cody Franson
(0-4-4) – (6-23-29) (6g, 33pts TOT)
Morgan Rielly – Roman Polak
(4-10-14) – (5-3-8) (9g, 22pts TOT)
Jake Gardiner – Petter Granberg
(2-9-11) – (0-0-0) (2g, 11pts TOT)

Jonathan Bernier
(16-14-4, 2.70GAA, .914SV%)
James Reimer

Scratched: Stuart Percy
Injured: Dion Phaneuf (hand), Joffrey Lupul (lower body), Stephane Robidas (upper body)

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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.