Toronto Maple Leafs 2008 Opening Night Projected Lineup

Well, I know this is not a very original article, but I actually did my homework on this one.

First off, a lot of this is actually based on comments by Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher and/or those by coach Ron Wilson. Also the Leafs had one of their first team practices of the year in which most players were present.

The first line is a bit of a surprising one. No shocker that Nik Antropov is there—or even that Poni is the LW on the "top line". What is very surprising is that Wilson wants to give Mikhail Grabovski every opportunity to start on that line as well. Given his inexperience, it seems surprising that Grabovski appears to be the team's opening-day No. 1 center.

Line 1:    Ponikarovsky   Grabovski    Antropov

Wilson has also stated recently that Steen and Stajan will be the teams second and third centers. It appears the Leafs are attempting to go with three balanced "scoring" lines.

Fletcher has said numerous times that Nikolai Kulemin would not only make the team out of camp, but will be likely be playing on one of the top two lines—and both he and Wilson have agreed that speedster Alex Steen would likely be the best fit as his centerman.

I would have thought that Blake would have started the year flanking Matt Stajan, whom he appeared to have a lot of chemestry with late last year.  However, it appears he will begin the year on the second line with rookie Kulemin and Steen.

Line 2:    Kulemin   Steen   Hagman

As mentioned before, Matt Stajan appears set to anchor the third line to begin the year, with two-way winger Niklas Hagman and sophomore Jiri Tlusty on the wing.

Line 3:    Blake   Stajan   Tlusty

The fourth line appears to be the only real battle for playing time up front.

It has already been confirmed numerous times that Mark Bell will definitely make the cut. Wilson had Bell in San Jose and is a big supporter. Jamal Mayers, whom the Leafs traded for this offseason will also most definitely be featured on this line. The center to start the year will likely be one of Dominic Moore or Boyd Devereaux.

Line 4: Bell   Moore/Devereaux   Mayers

The spares up front will consist of either Moore or Devereaux—depending on who gets the chance to start—tough guy Ryan Hollweg and one of Boyce, Earl, Newbury, Ondrus—or the most likely candidate, Jeremy Williams.

On the back end, the top four—again, according to Wilson—are Kaberle, Kubina, Finger and Frogren—who will be wearing McCabe's former No. 24.

That leaves defensemen Carlo Colaiacovo, Anton Stralman, Mike Van Ryan, and Ian White to battle for the final two spots.

It is very unlikely that Colaiacovo gets sat unless he is injured. When healthy, he still shows flashes of his first-round potential.

The primary reason Frogren was brought in was to mentor international partner Stralman. The two have worked very well together internationally, and the Leafs brass loved what they saw. Based on this reason, along with his high ceiling (in terms of potential), it appears that the sixth spot will be his to lose.

That being said, if Mike Van Ryan shows he is healthy and can revert to his 2007 form, expect him to get a lot of playing time—including on the second power-play unit.

Wilson has also stated that he intended to split up Kaberle and Kubina at least to start the year, in order to provide a more balanced lineup, and that Finger was the likely candidate to start the year with Kaberle.

Taking all this into account here are the likely defensicee pairings:

Kaberle   Finger

Colaiacovo   Kubina

Stralman   Frogren

Mike Van Ryan will likely open the year as the teams spare defender.  And obviously I do not have to put up the goalies on here.

So again, here is the likely opening-night lineup for the 2008 Leafs:

LW                         C                  RW

Ponikarovsky   Grabovski     Antropov

Kulemin          Steen          Hagman

Blake         Stajan         Tlusty

Bell              Devereaux     Mayers

LD          RD

Kaberle   Finger

Colaiacovo   Kubina

Stralman   Frogren

Spares: Moore, Hollweg, Van Ryan

Side Notes

Wilson has said the most likely scenario for team captain will be a rotating captaincy deployed by teams such as the Sabres, Wild and Wilson's former team the Sharks—before they decided on Patrick Marleau).

Kaberle has taken himself out of the consideration for team captain due to his quiet nature. Due to recent comments that he is "shocked" by the changes on the team, it is very likely that he will waive his no-trade clause on or before the deadline this year.

Fletcher raised eyebrows earlier this week when he declared Nik Antropov the team's only legitimate first line forward, and Ponikarovsky the only other player close. This apparently struck a nerve with Jason Blake and fired up Alex Steen.

Again, I realize I'm not the first person to write a similar report as this.  But being that most of the others were guesses—and yeah that's probably much more fun than this was—I decided to actually do a bit of research and put together the opening-day lineup (barring injuries), based solely on comments by the GM and coach.

To those of you who read this entire article—you must indeed be Leafs Fans.