Interesting pair of transactions. Kasperi Kapanen, who was the original Marlies selection along with Travis Dermott for the AHL All-Star game, is going as far as Syracuse, but not all the way to Utica for that All-Star game.

The Marlies play tonight in Syracuse and then don’t play again until next weekend. The Leafs play on Wednesday.

So the only math that works here is that Kapanen is going down just for this game, and he is expected to be back on the NHL roster to practice before the AHL All-Star game wraps up Monday night. There’s no cap benefit to sending him down, and the Leafs don’t seem to care about forcing guys on ELCs to take their AHL pay for a day or two.

Andreas Johnsson is having a great year, maybe should have been picked in the first place, and he will join Justin Holl in representing the Marlies this year.

As for Kapanen, there is room on the NHL roster right now to activate two of the three players on IR. If there are two ready to come back, he might just be stuck in the AHL for a while, and all of this was just getting him out of the All-Star game for some mysterious reason.

Toronto Marlies