The Toronto Maple Leafs made a questionable call for their lineup against the New York Islanders in the absence of captain Auston Matthews.

For the second time this season, it appears as though Leafs captain Auston Matthews is headed back to the shelf due to having re-aggrevated an injury following a nasty cross-check from Sabres defender Dennis Gilbert on Friday.

The three-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner had already missed 9 games through the month of November, going so far as to travel to Germany for treatment before finally making his anticipated return at the end of November against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Now, he appears to be in line to miss some additional time. Just how much time is the question on everyone’s minds.

Another question that many are wondering about is who will take Matthews’ spot in the top 6 while he’s out. While we don’t yet have the long-term answer to that question, we do know that Craig Berube does not appear to be interested in splitting up the dominant McMann-Domi-Robertson line. As a result, David Kampf has been elevated to play with Matthew Knies and Mitch Marner on the Leafs’ top line on Saturday.

Kampf has not only missed a lot of time in his own right this season, but he is very much the opposite of an offensive threat. Kampf has not scored a single goal in 20 games this season, and his career high is 11 goals, which he scored back in 2021-22 — his first season in Toronto.

Obviously, the Leafs’ lineup will see some shuffling if Matthews ends up missing significant time, but as far as Saturday’s lineup goes, the Leafs were kind of painted into a bit of a corner because of how well their 3rd line has played together. Otherwise, it would almost certainly have been Max Domi shifting up to play in the top six.

Let’s see how this Knies-Kampf-Marner line looks tonight before we form any assumptions of how effective/ineffective they’ll be.