{"id":683699,"date":"2026-10-10T21:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T21:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/683699\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T21:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T21:45:13","slug":"blankenburg-set-to-make-toronto-maple-leafs-debut-against-colorado-avalanche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/683699\/","title":{"rendered":"Blankenburg set to make Toronto Maple Leafs debut against Colorado Avalanche"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/toronto-maple-leafs\/10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/toronto-maple-leafs\/10\" target=\"_blank\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> are planning to go with 11 forwards and seven defencemen against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/colorado-avalanche\/21\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/colorado-avalanche\/21\" target=\"_blank\">Colorado Avalanche<\/a> on Saturday, with defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/nick-blankenburg\/8483565\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/nick-blankenburg\/8483565\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Blankenburg<\/a> set to make his debut with the team, according to head coach Jim Hiller.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 28-year-old Blankenburg joined the Maple Leafs on a PTO in the preseason and was signed to a one-year, $1.4 million deal with the team on Sept. 26.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Blankenburg spent the 2025-26 season with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/nashville-predators\/18\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/nashville-predators\/18\" target=\"_blank\">Nashville Predators<\/a> and Avalanche, where he scored eight goals and finished with 24 points in 61 games split between the two sides.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This is Blankenburg\u2019s sixth season in the NHL since signing as an undrafted free agent with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/columbus-blue-jackets\/29\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/columbus-blue-jackets\/29\" target=\"_blank\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> and making his NHL debut on Apr. 14, 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Maple Leafs will not have forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/john-tavares\/8475166\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/john-tavares\/8475166\" target=\"_blank\">John Tavares<\/a> in the lineup on Saturday after he went home to be with his wife for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/article\/with-new-dad-tavares-out-paul-moves-up-to-leafs-second-line\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/article\/with-new-dad-tavares-out-paul-moves-up-to-leafs-second-line\/\">birth of their fourth child earlier this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Saturday\u2019s game against Colorado is the second of a three-game swing out west for the Maple Leafs. They enter the contest coming off a 4-3 shootout loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/vegas-golden-knights\/54\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/vegas-golden-knights\/54\" target=\"_blank\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> on Thursday and are 2-2-1 on the young season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs are planning to go with 11 forwards and seven defencemen against the Colorado Avalanche&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[4759,193,192,144,33752,5277,5,4,32467],"class_list":["post-683699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-apple-news","tag-avalanche","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-colorado-avalanche-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-21","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-toronto-maple-leafs-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-10"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117418808002845439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683699","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=683699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}