{"id":6159,"date":"2017-02-03T03:05:19","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T08:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/?p=6159"},"modified":"2017-02-03T03:05:19","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T08:05:19","slug":"leafs-activate-ben-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2017\/02\/03\/leafs-activate-ben-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Leafs Activate Ben Smith, Send Down Frederik Gauthier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Maple Leafs have made a couple of roster moves prior to their game against the St. Louis Blues last night. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/smithbe01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ben Smith<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was been activated off of injured reserve, while <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gauthfr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Frederik Gauthier<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was subsequently been sent down to the Toronto Marlies of the AHL.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">With Ben Smith recovered from injury, the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/leafs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#leafs<\/a> have sent Frederik Gauthier back to the AHL Marlies.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reporterchris\/status\/827252483475042305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 2, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Back in the Lineup<\/h3>\n<p>Ben Smith comes back into the Leafs lineup after missing 18 games, being out since December 17. Smith required hand surgery\u00a0and has been patiently awaiting a return for nearly seven weeks. Prior to his injury, the 28-year old had appeared in 24 games with the Maple Leafs registering three points. He was claimed by Toronto off of waivers from Colorado back on October 24, where he has played as a fourth-line centre and penalty killer.<\/p>\n<p>Smith featured last night back in his usual spot on the fourth line, alongside <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=martima02,martima01&amp;search=Matt+Martin&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Martin<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/soshnni01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikita Soshnikov<\/a><\/strong>. He could see some penalty kill time in the future as well, as he had been a stalwart component of the unit prior to his\u00a0injury. Brought in as a faceoff specialist, it will be very interesting to see if Smith&#8217;s hand surgery impacts his faceoff abilities in any way.<\/p>\n<h3>Back to the Marlies<\/h3>\n<p>Frederik Gauthier is the casualty on the roster. As Ben Smith came back, Gauthier&#8217;s role as a\u00a0fourth-line centre is now filled. In 18 games with the Maple Leafs, Gauthier scored three points as well. He goes back to the Marlies looking to use his NHL stint to spark offensive success. When he was called up back in December after Smith&#8217;s injury, he had just four points in 17\u00a0AHL games.<\/p>\n<p>The Marlies are in need of depth, with <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kapanka01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kasperi Kapanen<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/leipsbr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brendan Leipsic<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/laichbr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brooks Laich<\/a><\/strong> all out with injuries. Gauthier returns with three Orlando Solar Bears providing spot duty, in <strong>Eric Faille<\/strong>, <strong>Brett Findlay<\/strong> and <strong>Tony Cameranesi<\/strong>. His addition to the lineup will be very important as the Marlies look to stay afloat with their two leading scorers out of the lineup.<\/p>\n<h3>Impact<\/h3>\n<p>The Leafs have reported interest in picking up another centre as the trade deadline quickly approaches. Smith comes back with basically one month to show that he can fill the fourth line role to the Leafs liking. If not, the Leafs will be looking to make a move.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/626533978\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 68.013468% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/626533978?et=T7CROy-TQTdhJyDhtFbSpQ&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=OGY9vaErL9kll3ox23mihVa53bbj3JN0aQlt7ATo46w=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"404\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Leafs have activated Ben Smith off of injured reserve, while Frederik Gauthier has subsequently been sent down to the Toronto Marlies of the AHL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1858,"featured_media":6169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,18],"tags":[1223,1222,37,38,72,508],"class_list":["post-6159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-leafs","tag-ben-smith","tag-frederik-gauthier","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-toronto-marlies"],"modified_by":"Nic Hendrickson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1858"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}