Illness forces Maple Leafs to make lineup changes

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the City of Brotherly Love to take on the Philadelphia Flyers this evening at South Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center,  but an illness has forced head coach Sheldon Keefe's hand into making a last-minute lineup switch. 

Simon Benoit draws back into the lineup after having been designated a healthy scratch the previous three games thanks to an illness to Ilya Lyubushkin, who did not travel with the team. And Keefe is expecting a fully-motivated Benoit to give it his all tonight. 

"I'd expect it to be a little bit better, quite honestly," Keefe said of what he expects from Benoit's game. "He's stepped back from the lineup and watched, and that's motivating in and of itself. But also, the league is hard when you're playing all the time," Keefe said.

"When you come back into the lineup, you expect to have a little bit more."

Speaking of healthy scratches, the Leafs will not be facing Flyers captain Sean Couturier, who has been benched by Philadelphia head coach John Tortorella after he's registered a single assist in the last nine games. 

"They are a team playing to qualify for the playoffs," Keefe said. "Things are getting tight around you. For that reason — and they are a proud team coming off of a loss to Boston and a loss to us — they are going to play well and play hard.

I fully expect a response. I talked to our team about that today. Something like scratching their captain gets the team’s attention. We certainly expect their best tonight."

The Leafs lineup for tonight's game against the Flyers is as follows, as reported by Mark Masters: 

Bertuzzi - Matthews - Holmberg
McMann - Domi - Nylander
Knies - Tavares - Robertson
Dewar - Kampf - Reaves

Rielly - Brodie
Benoit - McCabe
Edmundson - Liljegren

Goaltender Ilya Samsonov will get the start in net.

Recommended articles:

• Brad Treliving exposes the severity of Mitch Marner's injury
• Evgeny Kuznetsov blasts Toronto media
• Wayne Simmonds set to retire as a member of the Flyers.
• Sheldon Keefe changes his tune on the Mitch Marner injury.
• More bad news for Maple Leafs star Mitch Marner.