Injuries are once again beginning to pile up for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Beyond the team’s inconsistent play, it’s been that kind of season on the injury front. Nearly everyone — aside from a select few — has missed time. Oliver Ekman-Larsson had been one of the lone exceptions, playing in every game, but he left Wednesday night’s 2–1 OT loss to Detroit after just a few shifts. His status moving forward is now very much in question. The Leafs are off today, so further clarity is expected on Friday.
Clearly, spirits were not great to kick off the Thursday edition of Leafs Morning Take. Not only have the Leafs come crashing back to reality ever since the Colorado game, but once again, they’re dropping like flies. On top of the OEL news, on Thursday morning, Chris Johnston dropped a post on X suggesting Brandon Carlo may have tweaked something in the Detroit game, too. At this point, given who’s missing, you start to wonder if the Leafs will be able to weather the storm.
At any rate, the five game homestand isn’t off to a great start. Through two outings, the Leafs are 0-1-1, although they were much better on Wednesday night than they were against Minnesota. That said, every point’s so vital right now. In hindsight, grabbing just two of a possible eight points against Detroit this season may not bode well for Toronto’s hopes of making the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Meantime, Joseph Woll provided a great bounce-back performance following a pair of stinkers. He made 39 stops. John Gibson was awesome for Detroit, too. The veteran made 30 saves to improve to 16-2-0 in his past 18 decisions. Scott Laughton potted his seventh of the season. He had a chance for No. 8, but his penalty shot attempt went awry. It wasn’t pretty. Laughton’s the king of self-deprecation, which is probably a good thing in this instance. He’ll be fine. Toronto fell to 7-3-3 without William Nylander. They’re 9-2-4 since moving on from Marc Savard. The power play continues to go south as well. Toronto’s 2-for-14 with the man advantage over the past six outings.
After that, TSN’s Mark Masters stopped by. We broke down the Detroit OT loss before moving on to the Marner game. Masters was there in Vegas last week, and he will be there once again on Friday night. We talked about how he plans to attack things – media-wise – on Friday night and what kind of reception he expects for Marner. Even though the Leafs players think Marner should be cheered for his accomplishments, a big chunk of the fan base may have different feelings towards the All-Star forward. Marner’s still playing centre, so it will be interesting to see if it’s him against Matthews on the opening draw of the game.
Lastly, Rosey won’t be back on the show until Tuesday, so he gave his thoughts ahead of the most anticipated game of the season. He expects boos. And lots of them. We’ll see what happens.
With that in mind, Zack Phillips will be in for Rosey on the Friday edition of Leafs Morning Take as we cover all angles of Mitch Marner’s return to Toronto. Also, Dan Riccio, co-host of OFF THE ROSTER, will drop by the show to help tee things up.
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