As expected, the lowest man on the defence totem pole, Calle Rosen, has been sent to the AHL to make room on the 23-man roster for Roman Polak.

This leaves the Leafs with two choices for the right side on the third pair, Connor Carrick and Polak, and one on the left, Andreas Borgman.

At any time the Leafs can switch Rosen and Borgman as they do not require waivers. In addition, Martin Marincin can be called up and play up to 9 games without requiring waivers to return to the AHL.

Maple Leafs sign Roman Polak to a one year, $1.1 million contract
Maple Leafs have a lot of depth defenders, so naturally they added another

The Marlies are oversupplied with defenders, however.  With Travis Dermott, Timothy Liljegren and Andrew Nielsen needing playing time to develop, and now Rosen requiring some minutes for a similar purpose, it seems like there is a surplus there with players like Rinat Valiev or Justin Holl in the mix as well as Martin Marincin.

Marincin has played in three games, sometimes paired with Liljegren, and has earned some praise from Sheldon Keefe, but he looks very much on the outside looking in again.  We’ve said before that a trade seems inevitable with the Leafs, and it really does still look like they can’t intend to keep this much defence depth all year. But so far, they haven’t budged on cutting down the roster any.