The Toronto Maple Leafs made a notable roster change for Monday's game against Tampa. More changes will come on the waiver or trade fronts when everyone's healthy.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the NHL’s deeper teams, but there will be significant battles for some players just to stay in the lineup. 

Once some of their injured players are healthy – and even before then – Toronto will have some difficult choices of who will stay in the lineup, who will watch the games from the press box, who will be on the waiver wire and who will be heading elsewhere.

Indeed, in Monday morning’s pre-game skate before the Maple Leafs’ showdown against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Leafs coach Craig Berube looked to swap in recent healthy scratch Max Pacioretty in favor of enforcer right winger Ryan Reaves – and you can’t fault Berube for that decision. Reaves hasn’t done much in four games this season, and he’s averaging just 8:15 of ice time – the lowest amount of any player on the team.

Pacioretty isn’t a fourth-line player, so we expect him to draw in as the third-line left winger alongside center John Tavares and right winger Nick Robertson, as projected by Tim Hiebert on The Hockey News' lineups site. Left winger Pontus Holmberg would move down to play on the fourth line with center David Kampf and left winger Steven Lorentz.

Holmberg also has been largely ineffective in terms of points, with only one assist in five games. He will probably not start contributing notable amounts of offense anytime soon, either.

That will only make decisions tougher once forwards Calle Jarnkrok and Connor Dewar return from long-term injured reserve. Timetables for both players are uncertain, but they'll be eligible to return as soon as November. Whenever they do return, the team will need to make roster space and cap space.

Toronto GM Brad Treliving will have no choice but to send a couple of his players packing – either to another team via the waiver wire or trade, or to the AHL’s Toronto Marlies.

From this writer’s perspective, one of those players should be Reaves, who is likely to pass through waivers unclaimed, much like a similar player – rugged winger Kyle Clifford – was during the last three seasons.

Another player who seems destined for the sidelines in Leafs Land is Kampf, averaging just 11:03 of ice time in five games this season. That’s down more than two minutes per game from the 13:29 he averaged in 78 matches last season. With an average annual salary of $2.4 million, Kampf could become too expensive for the Buds. Even if Kampf is traded for a draft pick or decent prospect, Kampf’s cap space is the most important asset Treliving will gain by letting him go one way or another.

Regardless of who gets moved out of Toronto, the Maple Leafs must do something to become cap-compliant when everyone is healthy. The injury bug may strike again, of course, and put that decision off a few weeks longer, or Jarnkrok and Dewar could be injured for much longer than we think they might. But even in a best-case scenario where everyone is healthy, the Leafs will still be forced to part ways with at least one or two recognizable names.

Changes will continue to come for the time being with the Maple Leafs, and the name of the game for them and other NHL squads is to adapt quickly to those changes and do their utmost to thrive with the players they choose to work with. Toronto's challenge is to make the right roster choices, stay at or near the top of the Atlantic Division and set up an improved playoff run.

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