The Leafs will be down two key defencemen on Sunday night when they face the New Jersey Devils at Scotiabank Arena. <\/p>\n
Morgan Rielly is out after sustaining an undisclosed lower-body injury on Saturday night. The team is still awaiting word on the extent of the injury.<\/p>\n
Chris Tanev will join Rielly on the sidelines for load management. Tanev was limited to 11 games last season due to a series of injuries and the 36-year-old has already missed nine games this season with an undisclosed upper-body issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to manage him a little bit,\u201d coach Jim Hiller said. \u201cThe guy wants to play every single game, every night. He was on the ice this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tanev has played three games since returning from his latest injury last weekend in Vancouver. <\/p>\n
The Leafs depth on defence is being severely tested with Marshall Rifai and Nick Blankenburg also out right now. <\/p>\n
Dakota Mermis and Cole McWard will both draw in on Sunday and play together on the third pair. For McWard, it will be his 10th career NHL game and first with the Leafs. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just a Steady Eddie type of defenceman and that\u2019s all we\u2019re looking for from him,\u201d said Hiller. \u201cThey\u2019re a quick team, so they\u2019re going to have their hands full like every other D pair will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who has just one assist in 18 games, moves up to second pair and projects to partner with Troy Stecher. The Leafs believe the 35-year-old Swede is capable of more. <\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he had his best game of the season last game,\u201d Hiller praised. \u201cSo, he\u2019s shown us already. He\u2019s done it many times in his career. When he\u2019s called upon, he\u2019s stepped up. So I thought he started that process yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Rielly out and the Leafs trailing most of the game, Darren Raddysh played a season high 29 minutes and 43 seconds on Saturday night. Hiller points out that Raddysh\u2019s ice time was inflated, in part, due to an extended man-advantage situation at the end of the game. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose aren\u2019t the hardest minutes when you\u2019re on the power play,\u201d Hiller noted. \u201cBut, nonetheless, yeah, he\u2019s going to have to dig in and we\u2019ll definitely pull him back tonight. It\u2019s going to be a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Leafs are 8-8-2 and sit seventh in the Atlantic Division. <\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
With McWard getting called up and Rielly remaining on the active roster, the Leafs had to send down third-string goalie Artur Akhtyamov, who dressed as the backup to Sergei Bobrovsky on Saturday. <\/p>\n
The plan had been for Akhtyamov to back-up Anthony Stolarz on Sunday, but now Bobrovsky will have to dress. <\/p>\n
Hiller declined to say if he will be making a change to his forward group. <\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
The Devils are 12-5-0 on the season, which puts them second in the Metropolitan Division. <\/p>\n
\u201cReally since the trade [for Connor Hellebuyck], it seems like it\u2019s brought a lot of confidence to their whole team, not just their goaltending position,\u201d Hiller observed. \u201cSo probably playing as well as anybody in the league right now, and it will be a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Leafs have lost four of five, including a 4-2 defeat to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. <\/p>\n
New Jersey is coming off a come-from-behind overtime win against the New York Islanders on Saturday night. <\/p>\n
\u201cI loved our game,\u201d coach Sheldon Keefe said. \u201cI loved our game from start to finish. We didn\u2019t have the lead and we were chasing it a bit and there\u2019s some plays around our net front that we have to do a better job of, but our guys played real hard. That was a hard game too. I don\u2019t know what it looks like from upstairs or on TV, but from ice level that\u2019s as fast and physical and competitive a game as I think we\u2019ve been in all season, or certainly right there, and our guys didn\u2019t go away. So, I loved it.\u201d <\/p>\n
New Jersey will be starting Hellebuyck, who is undefeated (4-0-0) since being acquired from the Winnipeg Jets. <\/p>\n
Jake Allen picked up the win on Saturday. Why did the Devils save their No. 1 goalie for the second night of a back-to-back set?<\/p>\n
\u201cHad he played yesterday instead it would\u2019ve been three games in five days and we weren\u2019t ready for that or I don\u2019t feel he\u2019s ready for that,\u201d Keefe explained. \u201cSo, just give him the extra day of rest and that\u2019s how it falls into place. We played a division rival yesterday and it would\u2019ve been nice to have him there but we\u2019re still in the phase of getting him acclimated and getting him up and running.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does this schedule set up well for Hellebuyck to play in Winnipeg against his old team on Tuesday? <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll worry about today,\u201d Keefe said with a grin. <\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Devils forward Anthony Mantha has returned to New Jersey after suffering a throat injury on Saturday. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe is going to miss some time, we just don\u2019t know the extent of it,\u201d Keefe said. <\/p>\n
New Jersey will dress seven defencemen on Sunday with Brenden Dillon drawing in.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Sunday is the annual Hall of Fame Game in Toronto with the class of 2026 set to be honoured in a pre-game ceremony. <\/p>\n
It will be a new experience for rookie winger Gavin McKenna, who wasn\u2019t aware what the night entailed when asked about it on Friday. Your humble correspondent filled in the 18-year-old about what he should expect. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll be super cool,\u201d McKenna said. \u201cA lot of legends in the game so (smile) hopefully I can put on a show for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Leafs will be down two key defencemen on Sunday night when they face the New Jersey Devils…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[4759,5,20,5172,34386,4,66,31,32467,5171],"class_list":["post-706835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-apple-news","tag-hockey","tag-maple-leafs","tag-mapleleafs","tag-morgan-rielly-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8476853","tag-nhl","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-toronto-maple-leafs-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-10","tag-torontomapleleafs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117583392463812960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706835","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=706835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}