Toronto Maple Leafs: Nikita Zaitsev’s Injury Creates Massive Hole
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in trouble after Nikita Zaitsev’s injury.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost three of their last four games. Before Tuesday’s win over the Carolina Hurricanes, they had lost three straight games. Things just got worse with the news that defenseman Nikita Zaitsev will be out for multiple weeks.
The defenseman suffered a lower-body injury in Friday’s 3-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings and is expected to miss a minimum of two weeks. Zaitsev’s injury creates a massive hole on Toronto’s blue line the team might not be capable of filling with anyone currently within their system.
Since his arrival to Toronto, the Russian has quickly become one of the team’s most important and most trusted players. After coming over from the KHL last season at the age of 25, Zaitsev appeared to transition seamlessly into the NHL.
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Lost behind the impact of fellow rookies Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner, he showed his value by forming the Maple Leafs’ top defensive pairing along with Jake Gardiner. Zaitsev’s strong play continued into his second year as he hasn’t shown signs of a sophomore slump, unlike teammates Nylander and Marner. Although the pairing of Zaitsev and Gardiner may not be playing as well as last season, Zaitsev has still performed at a high level.
He currently leads the Maple Leafs in ice-time at 22:51 minutes per game, along with blocked shots with 94, 24 more than second place Ron Hainsey. Zaitsev’s also fifth on the team in plus/minus at +8 and fourth on the team in hits with 64.
Given how much he impacts the game defensively and how much head coach Mike Babcock relies on him to play big minutes, he’s one of the last players the team could afford to lose. It isn’t uncommon to see Babcock play Zaitsev for the entire two minutes on the team’s penalty kill unit. Toronto’s thin blue-line depth has nobody who could step in and replace him in the lineup.
The Maple Leafs only option within their system appears to be Carrick, who has been sitting in the press box for nearly a month. Babcock has foolishly allowed the slow and penalty prone Roman Polak to take Carrick’s spot in the lineup. Wasting a 23-year-old solid skater like Carrick as a healthy scratch in favor of a poor skater like Polak only hurts Carrick’s development and thus hurts Toronto in the long run. It’ll likely hurt even more as he will no doubt be rusty due to the lack of game action.
Carrick has the potential to develop into a quality fourth defenseman on the team given his skating and puck-moving whereas Polak is at-best a third pairing defenseman in today’s NHL. However, his lack of ice-time over the past month along with the combination of the three-game losing streak and the loss of Toronto’s best defenseman appears to be a recipe for disaster.
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Unfortunately, due to the NHL trade freeze during the holiday season, the Maple Leafs are unlikely to be able to seek out immediate help through the trade market. Meaning Babcock will now have to rely heavily on a player he didn’t feel was worthy of dressing for the past month.
The timing of Zaitsev’s injury couldn’t come at a worst time given Toronto’s recent struggles along with already dealing with an injury to Matthews. Two of the team’s most important players are now out of the lineup which suggests things are likely to get a lot worse for the Maple Leafs before they get better.