Report: Two Leafs benched ahead of match up against Washington.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have gotten off to a relatively strong start in the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season and have done so in spite of their ongoing issues with talented young forward William Nylander.

The Leafs have rattled off 4 wins to just 1 loss which would be good under normal circumstances but it has been especially impressive given their packed schedule, only the San Jose Sharks and Las Vegas Golden Knights have played as many games, to start to the season. Keeping that in mind you would assume that head coach Mike Babcock would be relatively happy with the performance of his roster thus far, but based on moves made earlier today that may in fact not be the case at all. 

According to a report from Jonas Siegel of the Canadian Press the Maple Leafs will be swapping a total of 4 players ahead of Saturday night's match up against the Washington Capitals. The two players coming out of the Leafs line up this evening are veteran defenseman Martin Marincin and veteran forward Tyler Ennis and, although we do not know why they are being sent up to the press box, I believe that the motivation for each of these moves is in fact performance based. 

In the case of the 26 year old Marincin many were surprised to see him make the final roster at all and thus far his performance this season has seemed to support the views of his doubters. After just two games with the Leafs Marincin has recorded no points while earning 2 penalty minutes and a plus minus rating of -2. Needless to say even with those superficial stats it's easy to see why Babcock might look to a different option on the blue line. 

Ennis finds himself in a similar scenario based on his own performances for the Maple Leafs so far this season. The 29 year old winger has appeared in all 5 games for the Leafs thus far but has recorded just a single point, an assist, and in his case he boasts a plus minus rating of -3. To his credit though he hasn't earned himself any time in the box yet this season. 

That now brings us to the two players who will be stepping in to replace Marincin and Ennis respectively. According to Siegel's report it will be 26 year old defenseman Igor Ozhiganov who will be stepping in for Marincin this evening and it seems likely that the Leafs are hoping Ozhigano will eventually take over that spot full time moving forward. In his first 3 games with the Leafs Ozhigano has a plus minus rating of -2 but those are his first 3 career NHL games so no doubt he gets some additional leeway on that front.

Last but not least will be 23 year old winger Andreas Johnsson stepping in to replace Tyler Ennis on the roster this evening. Johnsson is the much younger man and like Ozhiganov it seems fair to suggest that the Leafs would be pleased if he could claim the spot on a more permanent basis as a result. That being said though Johnsson's undisciplined play, 4 penalty minutes in 3 games, are likely what contributed to him getting benched in the first place and he will need to be wary if he wishes to remain in the line up.

[pub]