With the Leafs off on their bye week, the two waiver-exempt callups are going back to the Marlies. They won’t miss out on warm weather however, as the Marlies are heading south.

They are making a trip to play the Charlotte Checkers in North Carolina for two games this Friday and Saturday.  Don’t tell them, but the weather forecast says it’s only going to be 9°C on Saturday.

The interesting question will be what happens after Saturday? The Marlies have the whole of the week off leading up to a three teams in three cities in three days road trip the following Friday. Will the Leafs call Dermott back up? It seems likely, with Nikita Zaitsev not scheduled to return for another 2-3 weeks, per reports.

Gauthier, though, will they keep trying to play him in the NHL, or have they seen enough? Who knows. I don’t understand that situation, and I won’t pretend to.

If you’re outraged that a rookie like Dermott who has been in two games has been “demoted”, well go ahead, but skating and playing is actually better than not, and I doubt Dermott has a broken heart over it all. I’m sure he would have liked an extra week of NHL salary though.

The Leafs next play on Tuesday, so we’ll see what happens on Monday.

Toronto Marlies