The Maple Leafs host the Lightning tonight at 7:30 in a game televised on Sportsnet One and streamed on Sportsnet Now. This is a regional broadcast and should be available in the Toronto Maple Leafs region on both services.

There are changes afoot in the Leafs lineup.  Yesterday, the Leafs waived Milan Michalek and snapped up former Leaf/Marlie Ben Smith off of waivers.

Mike Babcock said they got Smith to use on the penalty kill, and he was given that job today in practice, skating with Matt Martin on one PK unit and the fourth line as expected.

He is also wearing Milan Michalek’s old number 18, so that makes that change pretty final.  Will you still be able to see the outline of his name stitched into the jersey, barely covered over by Smith?  Hockey is a cruel business sometimes.

In other changes, the defence pairings have been shaken up a little, and what the ice time has been saying: Nikita Zaitsev is playing top pairing minutes, is now made nominally true too.

Connor Carrick and Matt Hunwick seem like an odd couple, and let’s be honest, any pairing with Hunwick will seem like that, but so far their usage has been more of a match than Carrick’s has been with Gardiner.  The old set up was keeping Gardiner’s minutes very low, and forcing a shuffle in close score situations when Babcock was not using Carrick. He hasn’t been using Hunwick in that role either, and by usage they fit.

Some reporters are listing Connor Brown on the left side, but Paul Hendrick specifically stated that Komarov has moved to the left to allow Brown the right wing slot with Nazem Kadri. Wait, Connor Brown is a top nine player! In all the other shuffling, that’s easy to forget.

In other news from the morning skate, Brandon Prust is still skating with the team, and Frank Corrado, Josh Leivo and Seth Griffith are all on the ice.

Leivo is still in a sort of limbo.  In his post-practice interview yesterday, Babcock said he wasn’t ready to return, but he’s healthy enough to return. Leivo gave this interview, which seems to be leading up to a turn at the fourth-line right wing spot, currently occupied by Peter Holland.

The most likely arrangement for tonight is:

Toronto Maple Leafs

Forward Lines

Zach Hyman - Auston Matthews - William Nylander

James van Riemsdyk - Tyler Bozak - Mitch Marner

Leo Komarov - Nazem Kadri - Connor Brown

Matt Martin - Ben Smith - Peter Holland

Defence Pairings

Morgan Rielly - Nikita Zaitsev

Jake Gardiner - Roman Polak

Matt Hunwick - Connor Carrick

Goaltenders

Frederik Andersen

Jhonas Enroth

Tamba Bay Lightning

Ben Smith talks about his yo-yo trip that landed him back in Toronto: