Sheldon Keefe appears to give Matthew Knies some bad news on Sunday.

There will be tremendous pressure on the Toronto Maple Leafs as they head into their first round Stanley Cup playoff matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning, pressure that will be felt at all levels of the Maple Leafs organization.

Keeping that in mind, it will fall to head coach Sheldon Keefe to field the lineup that he feels will give the Maple Leafs the best possible chance of emerging victorious in Game 1 of this series, and that means making some tough decisions when it comes to personnel.

That appears to include giving some bad news to newcomer rookie forward Matthew Knies, who on Sunday was spotted wearing a grey jersey out on the ice. That color is usually reserved for players that will be extras and that appears to indicate that Knies will not be in the lineup for Game 1, although of course things can change quickly at this time of year.

There's a good case to be made for not using Knies, including giving the opportunity to players that have grinded all year to showcase their compete factor in the playoffs. Knies is also relatively inexperienced at the NHL level, having played only 3 regular season games and having just 1 assist to his name thus far, but that doesn't mean that the 20 year old winger couldn't slot in later in this series or even further down the line.

Although as I've mentioned things could change, Sheldon Keefe and the Maple Leafs may have given us a preview of their Game 1 lineup with their lines in practice on Sunday.

Forwards:
Bunting — Matthews — Marner
Tavares — O’Reilly — Nylander
Aston-Reese — Kämpf — Lafferty
Kerfoot — Acciari — Järnkrok

Defensemen:
McCabe — Brodie
Giordano — Holl
Rielly — Schenn

Presumably it will be Ilya Samsonov who gets the start in goal, but no official confirmation on that front just yet either.