Maple Leafs to Debut a New Line Upon Max Pacioretty's Return on Wednesday

Max Pacioretty was placed on injured reserve back on January 22nd after suffering an upper-body injury against the Montreal Canadiens on January 18th.

While Pacioretty went on to complete the game, he did not play in the Leafs' next game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and was subsequently placed on injured reserve.

Pacioretty's move to injured reserve allowed for rookie Jacob Quillan to make his NHL debut on Saturday against the Ottawa Senators. Unfortunately, Quillan's maiden voyage in the NHL was cut short after suffering an injury on a dangerous knee-on-knee hit.

Pacioretty and Quillan skated together with other injured Leafs ahead of practice, but it was only the 36-year-old Pacioretty that remained on the ice for practice, indicating that he is set to return to game action.

His return to practice led to head coach Craig Berube shuffling his forward group slightly. After an excellent game with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, Bobby McMann remained on the top line while Max Domi slotted next to Pontus Holmberg and William Nylander on the Leafs' second line.

Pacioretty drew back into the lineup skating alongside a couple of the kids in Fraser Minten and Nicholas Robertson on the third line. The fourth line of Steven Lorentz, David Kampf and Ryan Reaves remained intact. Nikita Grebenkin skated as an extra.

There were no changes to the pairs on the blueline as Berube appears set on giving his new top pair of Morgan Rielly and Jake McCabe some runway to establish cohesion, meaning that Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Chris Tanev remained together as well. Conor Timmins looks to be watching his second consecutive game from the press-box as he skated on the fourth pairing with the still injured Jani Hakanpaa.

The Leafs once again had three goalies taking part in practice with Joseph Woll, Matt Murray and Anthony Stolarz all taking shots, meaning that Berube has not made a decision on who will start on Wednesday against the Minnesota Wild.