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Maple Leafs hint at two major lineup changes for Game 6.
Daniel Lea/CSM/Zuma  

Maple Leafs hint at two major lineup changes for Game 6.

The Toronto Maple Leafs appear poised to make two significant changes to their lineup ahead of tonight's game.

Jonathan Larivee

The Toronto Maple Leafs are hoping to break the curse tonight and advance past the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs by knocking off the Tampa Bay Lightning in 6 games. The Lightning have proven to be a resilient foe however and have already staved off elimination, and of course the Leafs have the added pressure of having a gigantic monkey on their back.

It looks like head coach Sheldon Keefe intends to pull out all the stops for Game 6 in his effort to get his team over that hurdle, with the Leafs hinting at a pair of very significant lineup changes on Saturday morning.

The first hint came to us courtesy of TVA Sports' Renaud Lavoie, who on Saturday morning noticed that forward Michael Bunting did not remain on the ice with the extras during the Leafs morning skate. This appears to indicate that Keefe will be re-introducing Bunting into the series after he earned himself a costly suspension for a hit delivered to Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak.

Perhaps an even bigger change though was the second one hinted at during the Leafs morning skate, with Leafs defenseman Justin Holl taking part in the optional skate. This has led to a belief that he could be a healthy scratch in favor of defenseman Timothy Liljegren, a change that many expected to see Sheldon Keefe make earlier in this series.

Timothy Liljegren has been out of action for 16 days and has not appeared in a single game during this series, so this would be a risk on the part of the Maple Leafs head coach.

When he was questioned about his lineup, Keefe opted not to give any information at all.

“I’m not going to take any questions on the lineup," said Keefe.