Following last night’s game against Montreal the Leafs added a couple more names to growing number of Toronto Marlies.
The @MapleLeafs have reassigned G Keith Petruzzelli and D Tommy Miller to the @TorontoMarlies (AHL)
— Leafs PR (@LeafsPR) October 3, 2023
Keith Petruzzelli was serving as Ilya Samsonov’s backup last night and after his services were no longer required, he was given the direction to pack up his stuff and make his way over to the Coca-Cola Colosseum, at least for the time being. With Dennis Hildeby, Slava Peksa, and potentially Martin Jones (if he clears waivers) there will be some tough competition for Petruzzelli to even hold a job on the Marlies and get the necessary playing time to move himself forward. Keith could find his way back to St. John’s to play for the Growlers or Toronto could look to see if there is another AHL team that is interested in taking him on loan as well. No matter how you slice it there is still going to be needed to show what he can do in the AHL camp so it’s probably to Keith’s benefit that he’s been assigned to the Marlies sooner rather than later.
The move puts the Leafs down to three goaltenders and it will be interesting to see how work is divided up in the remaining two games. Samsonov had the net on Monday, but it is very likely that they will want to give him another look before the regular season as well. The same probably holds true for Woll, so Jones could just be waiting for his waivers moment or for Toronto to magically come up with the camp space to run with three goaltenders to start the year.
As for the assignment of Tommy Miller, this seemed a bit more like the Leafs forgot to send him down with the other Marlies in the bulk assignment earlier in Monday afternoon. He’s been injured and won’t likely be active in the Marlies camp, so I guess there wasn’t a rush to get the paper work done.
The Leafs training camp is now divided into the guys who will make the team, the juniors who still need to be assigned, the players who require waivers to be assigned, and then Holmberg, Robertson, and Kokkonen.
