Line Combinations Confirm Some Significant Changes For the Maple Leafs Against Carolina

On Tuesday, Ryan Reaves drew back into the lineup as a deterrent against Garnet Hathaway and the Philadelphia Flyers.

The tactic to attempt to keep the Flyers in check appeared to work despite Reaves being a minus-1 while seeing just 6:52 of ice time, which has many questioning if his time in Toronto is coming to an end.

As the Leafs get set for the end of their mentors trip on Thursday against the Carolina Hurricanes, Reaves will once again find himself watching from the press box as Pontus Holmberg took his spot on the fourth line during the morning skate.

With Holmberg skating alongside David Kampf and Connor Dewar, Steven Lorentz remains elevated in the lineup on the third line, but will be skating with Nicholas Robertson and Max Domi this time around as Robertson draws in for Max Pacioretty in somewhat of a surprising change.

The scratching of Pacioretty is a mystery, but it is likely more about resting the 36-year-old rather than poor performance or something related to an injury.

On the back end, with Jake McCabe sitting on injured reserve, Berube has elected to shuffle his defensive pairings, reverting back to a Morgan Rielly, Chris Tanev top pair, while Philippe Myers, who has looked very good next to Rielly, slides down to skate with Oliver Ekman-Larsson. The third pairing remains intact with Simon Benoit and Conor Timmins skating next to each other.

The Leafs will look to win their sixth in a row before welcoming the Vancouver Canucks to town on Saturday for their Indigenous Heritage game, while the Hurricanes will look to get back into the win column against a Leafs team that is really rolling right now.