The Toronto Maple Leafs have been riddled with injuries before the season even started. Now Mitch Marner will be out indefinitely with an ankle injury.
There was a lot of hype surrounding the Toronto Maple Leafs before the start of the 2019-2020 season. The excitement surrounding the new players acquired over the summer combined with the thirst for hockey brought a buzz to the city. However, once the puck dropped, the product on the ice has been mediocre and has not lived up to expectations.
A big reason that can be pointed to is injuries. The Leafs entered the season with both Zach Hyman and Travis Dermott out. At the time, it didn’t seem like the team was losing big pieces, but especially with the first line, the absence of Hyman was felt.
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Then, John Tavares missed some games due to a broken finger in a game against the Washington Capitals and Mike Babcock had to do some line juggling. Two weeks later, Tavares was cleared to play.
In the next game, Mitch Marner gets tangled up and now is out indefinitely with an ankle injury. We are over a month into the NHL season and the Leafs have yet to ice a healthy first line.
Marner’s injury came off a faceoff when his right foot got tangled with the stick of Flyers’ player, Carsen Twarynski. He immediately went down and had to hop and crawl his way back to the bench as he was unable to put any weight on that ankle. He tried skating two more times after but quickly realized that he was not going to be playing the rest of the game.
I’m no doctor, but the fact that he was unable to even put weight on his right foot makes it seem like a serious injury. Marner could be out as long as three weeks if his ankle is sprained.
With Marner out, it will be interesting to see what kind of lines Babcock decides to run with. Here are my forward line predictions for tonight’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks:
Trevor Moore – John Tavares – Kasperi Kapanen
Andreas Johnsson – Auston Matthews – William Nylander
Ilya Mikheyev – Alexander Kerfoot – Jason Spezza
Dmytro Timashov – Frederik Gauthier – Nick Shore
Keeping the Leafs forward lines as similar as possible is key for Babcock to allow these players to properly build chemistry. The month of October was a carousel of forwards and line changes and now that the team is finally playing well, he will not want to mess with it too much. Promoting Kapanen and sliding Spezza into the third line is almost a seamless transition.
Having the team go through adversity early on in the season is good for building the Leafs’ mental toughness. Last season, the Tampa Bay Lightning had a perfect regular season with no adversity and they were swept in the first round.
The Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues, however, were dead-last in January and even had a fight in practice. They navigated through the tough times as a team and came out unstoppable. The hard times are not fun to watch, but it ultimately makes this team better.