Time for Toffoli?

The Manchester Monarchs suffered a difficult loss Sunday afternoon by allowing two goals in the final three minutes and dropping a 3-2 road decision to the Connecticut Whale. Manchester is just 1-7-0-1 in its last 9 games.

In defeat, Kings forward prospect Tyler Toffoli scored his 24th goal of the season and added an assist on Linden Vey’s first period marker. Toffoli’s 24 goals are tied for second in the AHL amongst active players.

And then there are the Kings, who after a two-goal performance on Sunday rank 27th in the league with an average of 2.23 goals per game.

In Darryl Sutter’s postgame press conference, Helene Elliott of the L.A. Times raised the question on Toffoli’s availability after Sunday’s loss.

Sutter, on the possibility of Toffoli, or other players from Manchester joining the team:
“We’re at our roster [limit]. You only have a 23-man roster. That’s what we have right here, is 23. So you just can’t put players in.”

Sutter, on whether a player could go down to bring Toffoli up:
“You’d need a paper trail for that, but I don’t think that’s our situation. We have some young players on defense that didn’t play very well tonight, and we have some forwards up front that aren’t ready for the heavy lifting, so I don’t think going to Manchester’s going to help that.”

Is this the right time for Toffoli? Or should the Kings wait to call Toffoli up to coincide with a theoretical trade of a forward, which could potentially fill a defensive hole while opening a spot for the promising 20-year-old?