Toronto Maple Leafs vs Detroit Red Wings

7:00 p.m., Sportsnet

Winging It In Motown

The Leafs are facing the Red Wings back in Toronto for their final preseason game, with a roster that’s as close to their final form as we’re getting before opening night. There’s a couple of players that won’t be on the ice tonight that we’ll be seeing back on October 2nd (Marincin, Sandin), and a couple that are being given a final chance to show the team what they’ve got to offer (Holl, Korshkov), but otherwise this is pretty much it.

This preseason has shown that the Leafs have some decent call-up options headed into the regular season, and with Sandin unexpectedly making his case to make the jump to the NHL out of camp, a better looking defensive third pairing for opening night than was previously predicted. While it can be hard to change Babcock’s mind once he’s made it up, with today’s cuts, Harpur is officially not making the team out of camp. Let’s all take a nice deep breath.

With tonight being do-or-AHL for only a couple of players, we can look forward to a fairly low-stakes final preseason game from the almost-Toronto Maple Leafs. The one notable tweak to the lineup is that Spezza is out in favour of Shore.

The Red Wings haven’t released their roster for tonight yet, but safe to say it will include Dylan Larkin and some other guys who are definitely hockey players.

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