Mike Babcock has benched 4 players tonight.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will be resting some of their core guys ahead of their entry into the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

According to a breaking news report from Toronto Maple Leafs beat reporter Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock has made the decision to put a number of his players up in the press box this evening, presumably with the intent to prevent injury or perhaps even to provide some of the more veteran players among those being scratched some additional rest. The move is not an uncommon one, but you do have to wonder about the timing a little bit. 

First and foremost the 4 players being sat this evening will be veteran defenseman Ron Hainsey, Nikita Zaitsev, Jake Muzzin and Travis Dermott. It certainly does not take a rocket scientist to realize that every player being given a break tonight is a member of the Maple Leafs blue line, a blue line that has struggled mightily during the final stretch of the regular season, especially since veteran defenseman Jake Gardiner went down to an injury earlier in the season. Although this is purely speculation on my part, you have to wonder if Mike Babcock does not feel like the Leafs have been demanding too much of their defensive corps in Gardiner's absence, and perhaps that is why they are getting a rest above some potential superstar names on the roster.

What is particularly interesting here is the timing of this move, one that was not made earlier in spite of the fact that it seemed quite clear that both the Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins would square off in the first round of the playoffs. It is worth noting that the Montreal Canadiens were officially eliminated from playoff contention on Friday night and that is the team that the Leafs will play this evening in their final game of the 2019 - 2020 NHL regular season. Some have openly wondered if the Leafs would be sitting these players if Montreal remained in playoff contention and it is a question that I would have loved to see the answer to myself, alas the Blue Jackets got the job done and we will never know the answer to that question.

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