As reported last night by CapFriendly, a few surprise roster moves have been made by the Maple Leafs. Joey Anderson and Kirill Semyonov have been called up to the Leafs, while Timothy Liljegren has been sent down to the Marlies.
UPDATE: All roster moves are now confirmed on the AHL website as single day moves only.

These moves are in addition to the one officially announced publicly on the weekend, which was that Michael Hutchinson is rejoining the Marlies from his emergency recall to the Leafs now that Peter Mrazek is back from his injury. UPDATE: Andrew D’Agostini being released from the Marlies is likely a result of this as the Marlies will presumably run with Hutchinson and Joseph Woll as their goaltending duo.

The Marlies are going on a quick road trip through up-state New York, but their games are not until Friday and Saturday, so it is possible that Anderson and Semyonov could be with the Leafs only for practice, or only for tomorrow night’s game—playing or in the press-box—and then re-join the Marlies before both of those games.

The situation is complex as the Leafs are still waiting on Ilya Mikheyev to come back from his thumb injury, probably around the first week of December, and the the Leafs also lost Michael Amadio to waivers on the weekend while trying to send him to the Marlies, something which could be related to tomorrow’s game, since the team claiming him were the Vegas Golden Knights and they are the team happens to be in town for that game, meaning that he could be on their roster to play against the Leafs without having to travel anywhere. That’s not certain, though. There is a theory they acquired Amadio as a backstop in anticipation of sending roster players out in a complex trade for Jack Eichel from the Buffalo Sabres. Obviously, Eichel would not be playing with them for months since he needs major surgery, so the Golden Knights would need bodies to fill the holes in their roster for that interim period. However, that heavily-rumoured trade is still not official, so Amadio may only sit and watch tonight’s game from the pressbox again, only for a different team this time.

In the interim, if Anderson and Semyonov do play, I will be interested to see how they fit in. I have been impressed by both at Marlies games so far this season. They have top level pro experience to be ready for this too, Anderson with the New Jersey Devils, and Semyonov in the KHL. Anderson is good on the PK too.

This will all kick off a schedule from hell with the Leafs playing seven games in twelve days, including two in-division games later this week against the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Boston Bruins. Those will be a critical test for this team. Here are the division standings right now, about eight to nine games in for most teams. It certainly does not appear to be ordered the way anyone expected before the start of the season.

On the other hand, it certainly looks really bad for the Habs. That is one hell of a Stanley Cup not-winning hangover they have. One wonders how long they can stay at last place in this division before some serious changes happen in the management ranks.

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