Wayne Simmonds appears to be back in the fold for the Leafs

The Minnesota Wild announced today that veteran goaltender Marc Andre Fleury has been re-activated from the injured reserve and will be in the lineup for tomorrow afternoon's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Check it out:

Fleury hasn't played in over a week after suffering an injury in a loss to the Nashville Predators. Just yesterday Wild head coach Dean Evason said that he wasn't sure when Fleury would return to action.

“No time frame at all,” coach Dean Evason said. “Just started skating. He skated today. We’ll see what he does tomorrow and figure it out from there.”

Well... tomorrow is now today and evidently The Flower is good to go.

And just yesterday the Wild acquired enforcer Ryan Reaves from the New York Rangers in an effort to beef up their lineup. Today it looks like the Leafs are anticipating some rough stuff from Reaves tomorrow and are planning on dressing veteran Wayne Simmonds in response. Simmonds, who has been a fixture on the waiver wire the past few weeks, looks to be back in the fold for the Leafs as evidenced from head coach Sheldon Keefe's lines at practice today.

For better or worse, Simmonds is really the only true tough guy that the Leafs have available to them in their lineup as it's currently constructed. You could argue that injured defenseman Jake Muzzin plays a tough game but... well... he's a bandaid. Muzzin is almost never healthy and even when he is healthy, there's no way he'd stack up against a guy like Reaves. The fact of the matter is that the Leafs have one of the softest, most skilled lineups in the NHL. On the flip side, the Wild have big bodies like Reaves, Marcus Foligno and Jordan Greenway. They are arguably one of the biggest, toughest lineups in the entire NHL. All of this is to say that tomorrow's matchup could provide us with some fireworks.

As for Fleury, you just KNOW he's relishing the opportunity to get back into the lineup and to put up some good performances.