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Phil Kessel still faces the technicality of passing a strength and agility test on his surgically repaired shoulder before he is officially cleared to play – but, at this point, that is like the skill-testing question contest winners have to answer to prove they are conscious.

Barring an accident at home last night, Kessel will line up at right wing for the 1-7-4 Toronto Maple Leafs today, when they meet the Tampa Bay Lightning (4-4-4) at the Air Canada Centre.

The problem now is keeping expectations in check, as the 22-year-old has not played an NHL game since last May, when his former team, the Boston Bruins, was eliminated from the playoffs.

So perhaps Leafs brass didn’t appreciate defenceman Tomas Kaberle’s take on Kessel’s long-awaited debut in Toronto blue and white. “Obviously, he’s a skilled guy,” Kaberle said after practice yesterday. “He showed he can score 30, 40, 50 goals a year [36 in 70 games last season]. It’s going to be a big help for us. Hopefully, he’s healthy enough. He’s got potential.”

You can’t blame Kaberle for turning on the hype machine since his worth was once tied to Kessel.

Kaberle was once almost traded to the Bruins for the sniper, but the deal fell through. Later, Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke pulled the trigger on a trade to acquire Kessel at the cost of two future first-round draft picks and a second-rounder – a price that caused much debate in Southern Ontario.

“Actually, my buddy called me and said, ‘It looked for a second like you were going to Boston and then it didn’t happen,’ ” Kaberle said. “But it’s something that’s part of the game. You never know. Things happen for a reason, I’m happy I stayed."

Given his play over the last week, Kaberle can afford to be magnanimous. After a slow start, he is playing the best hockey of his career at both ends of the ice and is the leading point-getter among NHL defencemen.

As for Kessel, his problem with living up to the expectations of Kaberle and Toronto fans is he won’t have centre Marc Savard feeding him the puck. He’ll have Matt Stajan, with Jason Blake playing on the left side.

No offence to Stajan but, unlike Savard of the Bruins, he is not one of the NHL’s top assist men. Then again, maybe he will be with Kessel serving as a sniper.

Up to now, Kessel said, he’s been able to travel about Toronto anonymously because a torn labrum and torn rotator cuff kept him off the ice and out of the fans’ field of vision. That will change tonight – although Kessel said the pressure he feels will not come from the overweening expectations of the hockey public.

“There’s always pressure when you play hockey,” he said. “You just feel it because you want to help the team win, get in the playoffs or at least compete for a playoff spot.”

By putting him on what is arguably the Leafs’ first line with Stajan and Blake, head coach Ron Wilson admitted he is not committed to limiting the amount of playing time Kessel will get in his first game in almost six months.

Kessel, though, said he is not expecting to step on the ice and fill the net. “It’s the first day,” he said. “I think it’s going to take some time to get used to [each other], to jell. We’ll be fine.”

At this point, Kessel said, all he can expect is to “just go out there and play a good game. You don’t put too much pressure on yourself. You just go out there and play your game – the main thing is to get a win.”

He did say he does not expect to see a dip in his scoring simply because he is no longer playing with Savard.

“I’m not too worried,” Kessel said. “I’ve done it before without him in other places. I enjoyed playing with him, but I think playing with Stajan and Blake won’t make much of a difference, to tell you the truth.”

Wilson said he chose Stajan to be Kessel’s centre because he appears to be the most suitable candidate. But he expects to spread the work around.

“John Mitchell likes to carry the puck, Grabo [the aptly named Mikhail Grabovski] likes to carry the puck and we have to have someone who’s going to feed [Kessel],” Wilson said. “I know since he is a pure goal-scorer all our centres are going to want a shot to play with him.

“We’ll go game-to-game, shift-to-shift, to see how it’s going.”