Maple Leafs at St. Louis Blues: Sparks & Bibeau take the reigns

Well, tonight will certainly be something to watch. Two rookies in net for the Maple Leafs, a powerful St. Louis Blues team coming at them. It will be a real test for the Maple Leafs skaters tongiht to try and limit the amount of shots and scoring chances the Blues are going to get. If you want to see a miracle, or a blood bath, tune in tonight for sure.

Toronto Maple Leafs at St. Louis Blues
7PM EST - Scottrade Centre
TV: CBC RAdio: TSN1050
SBN: St. Louis Game Time

Sending Bernier down to the Marlies for a conditioning stint made sense. Reimer was coming back from injury and Sparks was already up. Bernier needed a win and some confidence back so a couple games in the minors could do that for him. He had a shutout last night vs Rochester, so it may be working.

However, Reimer injured himself in his first game back, Bernier had 9 days left on this stint so Sparks was named starter for tonight and Antoine Bibeau was recalled to be his back up. The Blues know this and perhaps have changed their game plan to reflect the weakness in net. Hopefully the Leafs will also have changed their plan to be more defensive minded.

Projected Lines

Toronto

James van Riemsdyk - Tyler Bozak - PA Parenteau
Peter Holland - Nazem Kadri - Leo Komarov
Michael Grabner - Nick Spaling - Daniel Winnik
Shawn Matthias - Byron Froese - Brad Boyes

Jake Gardiner - Dion Phaneuf
Matt Hunwick - Morgan Rielly
Martin Marincin - Roman Polak

Garret Sparks
Antoine Bibeau

Injured: Joffrey Lupul (lower body), Stephane Robidas (groin), James Reimer (lower body), Nathan Horton (back)
Scratched: Frank Corrado (duh)

St. Louis

Jori Lehtera - Paul Stastny - Vladimir Tarasenko
Alexander Steen - David Backes - Troy Brouwer
Dmitrij Jaskin - Scott Gomez - Robby Fabbri
Steve Ott - Kyle Brodziak - Ryan Reaves

Jay Bouwmeester - Alex Pietrangelo
Kevin Shattenkirk - Colton Parayko
Carl Gunnarsson - Robert Bortuzzo

Jake Allen
Brian Elliott

Injured: Jaden Schwartz (ankle), Patrik Berglund (shoulder)
Scratched: Scottie Upshall, Magnus Paajarvi, Joel Edmundson

Twitter buzz

Babcock on Bernier: "It’d be easy to bring him back right now ... but I would much rather he gets the four opportunities he has." #Leafs

— Terry Koshan (@koshtorontosun) December 5, 2015

Babcock said he'd rather Bernier get 4 starts with Marlies, "feel real good about himself and come back and be who he’s capable of being."

— Jonas Siegel (@jonasTSN1050) December 5, 2015

Babcock says Reimer re-aggravated injury: "Everyone thought he was ready to go and obviously he wasn't because he's back where he was."

— Jonas Siegel (@jonasTSN1050) December 5, 2015

Leafs' last win in ST. Louis was Nov 10/2011. Ben Scrivens stood on his head to make 38 saves in a 3-2 shootout win. #TMLtalk

— Paul Hendrick (@HennyTweets) December 5, 2015

My thoughts: My fingers are crossed we see Oilers Sparks and not Jets Sparks. Hopefully the team bands together for the kids and keeps chances low for the Blues.