{"id":465023,"date":"2026-02-20T22:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/465023\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T22:22:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:22:00","slug":"maple-leafs-give-promising-23-year-old-an-opportunity-because-of-olympics-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/465023\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs give promising 23-year old an opportunity because of Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maple Leafs give promising 23-year old an opportunity because of Olympics<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> have a bunch of players taking part in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.<\/p>\n

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That has created some opportunities back in Toronto, where the NHL squad has returned to practice this week.<\/p>\n

That includes a chance for defenseman William Villeneuve. He was called up from the AHL Marlies, the Maple Leafs announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Villeneuve’s call-up is mostly a practice procedure. Oliver Ekman-Larsson is away at the Olympics with Sweden.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0A dog stole the show at the finish line of cross country skiing<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the first promotion of the season for Villeneuve, who is a 23-year old and former fourth-round pick.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-2 right-hander played 55 games last season for the Marlies and recorded 36 assists (along with four goals).<\/p>\n

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This season, he’s at 18 points through 40 games, with the entire Marlies team taking a step back.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Mikaela Shiffrin just broke the Olympics<\/a><\/p>\n

The Toronto Sun’s Terry Koshan<\/a> ranks Villeneuve as the No. 2 defensive prospect in the Maple Leafs’ system.<\/p>\n

This has some medium-term implications for Villeneuve’s career.<\/p>\n

Because the Maple Leafs have struggled this season, they could end up selling before the NHL trade deadline. And if they trade a defenseman or two, that could open up a spot.<\/p>\n

Villeneuve can impress the coaches at practice to set up a late-season NHL debut.<\/p>\n

More Olympics news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs give promising 23-year old an opportunity because of Olympics originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[3189,5,20,5172,4,782,66,31,5171,26189,21972],"class_list":["post-465023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-2026-winter-olympics","tag-hockey","tag-maple-leafs","tag-mapleleafs","tag-nhl","tag-oliver-ekman-larsson","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-torontomapleleafs","tag-villeneuve","tag-william-villeneuve"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116105297527918986","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}