The Toronto Maple Leafs will be getting a massive boost to their lineup on Saturday, as veteran forward John Tavares is set to return after missing nine games with an undisclosed lower-body injury, per TSN\u2019s Mark Masters.<\/p>\n
According to Masters, head coach Jim Hiller confirmed the news following Saturday\u2019s optional skate.<\/p>\n
Tavares skated in a regular sweater on Friday after wearing a non-contact sweater in Wednesday\u2019s session. According to Masters, Leafs captain Auston Matthews described Tavares as the best player as the team\u2019s past two practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the best,\u201d the 36-year-old Tavares said after Friday\u2019s session. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing like getting out there to compete with your teammates and being with the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tavares, who has produced seven points in seven games this season, skated on the left wing of the second line centered by Nick Paul with William Nylander on the right side. <\/p>\n
Before getting hurt on Oct. 15, Tavares had shifted to left wing and that\u2019s where he projects to play on Saturday. <\/p>\n
During the off-season, Hiller gave Tavares, a natural centre, a heads up that they may try this look. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlways to make you aware of things, I think helps a little bit,\u201d Tavares said of the adjustment. \u201cDifferent style of game, different ice surface, but obviously that\u2019s where I played throughout May at the World Championships. So, I\u2019ve been there at different instances in my career in different situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tavares has logged 1,273 career games in the NHL, but has spent time at left wing in fewer than 20 of those contests, and has gotten very few looks there in his nine seasons in Toronto.<\/p>\n
The Leafs went 2-3-2 with Tavares in the lineup, and have been treading water without him, going 5-4-0.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that we maybe struggled with is O-zone time, winning puck battles, getting to the net front,\u201d Hiller said. \u201cThat\u2019s what John does extremely well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Maple Leafs will take on the Montreal Canadiens at home on Saturday before travelling to New Jersey to battle the Devils on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs will be getting a massive boost to their lineup on Saturday, as veteran forward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":961988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[712,49,48,82681,3302,74650],"class_list":["post-961987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-john-tavares-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8475166","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-maple-leafs-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/961988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}