It’s easy to argue that Luca Caputi and Christian Hanson outplayed John Mitchell in training camp.

And it would be easy to say that Mitchell’s career as a Leaf was headed for the gallows. But he got a stay of execution and – somehow – won the final forward’s job over Caputi and Hanson on Monday as the Leafs pared their roster. Also, as expected, rookie Nazem Kadri and goalie Jussi Rynnas were sent with Caputi and Hanson to the AHL Marlies.

“There’s a balancing act here,” said Leafs GM Brian Burke. “You want to be fair to the players involved. There’s a ‘body-of-work’ concept that we employ, too. I don’t think Mitchell has played as well has he can or should have. But we’ve seen what Mitchell can do for a couple of years.

“He got a call from the governor on this one. He got a reprieve. He’s going to get a chance to show us what he can do. He hasn’t earned that this time around, but he earned it with his past contributions.”

Mitchell would have had to have cleared waivers to go to the Marlies and it’s likely the Leafs would have lost him had they tried to send him to the AHL.

Kadri, Hanson and Caputi — because they’re less than three years’ pro — can go between leagues without waivers.

“Sometimes, if you’re a new guy, you’ve got to be better than the incumbent,” said Burke. “If you go the way training camp went, I think Caputi and Hanson could both make a real good argument that this isn’t a fair result.

“But these are not guys we want playing six minutes a night. We want them to go down and play.”

Burke said Kadri took the demotion maturely. “Kadri has accepted what’s going on here,” said Burke. “He’s made his own bed. He’s been very mature about it. If I could go back to the draft I would take Nazem Kadri again. We believe in him. He’s just not ready to play in the top 6 just yet.”

The Leafs put three players on waivers: forward Mike Zigomanis, defenceman Danny Richmond and forward Jay Rosehill. Teams have until noon Tuesday to claim those players. If they clear waivers, Richmond and Rosehill will head to the Marlies. Zigomanis will remain with the Leafs as the 13th forward, although the Leafs will have a 30-day window in which they could send Zigomanis to the Marlies.

Defencemen Brett Lebda and Matt Lashoff will start the season on the injured list, with Lashoff the closer of the two to returning to the lineup.

The Leafs roster

Goalies: J.S. Giguere, Jonas Gustavsson

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Defence: Luke Schenn, Dion Phaneuf, Mike Komisarek, Tomas Kaberle, Francois Beauchemin, Carl Gunnarrson, Jeff Finger, Matt Lashoff, Brett Lebda.

Forwards: Kris Versteeg, Tyler Bozak, Phil Kessel, Nikolai Kulemin, Mikhail Grabovski, Clarke MacArthur, Colby Armstrong, Tim Brent, Frederik Sjostrom, Colton Orr, John Mitchell, Mike Brown, Mike Zigomanis.

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