BREAKING: Leafs make SURPRISING moves... Injury Updates | Toronto Maple Leafs News

Here's some breaking news as the Toronto Maple Leafs have just made multiple big moves and ahead of an important game tomorrow night, the Leafs and John Tavares continue to make moves this time, calling up a defenseman, but it isn't the defenseman fans wanted to be brought up. But to break that down, as well as discuss some brutal injury updates surrounding Marshall Rafai and others, but an encouraging update surrounding Chris Tanev as well, Dakota Joshua. There's tons of news to go over today, including some exciting notes following yesterday's electric win. But before we get into it all, very quick reminder to hit the subscribe button. You guys have been beast with the support. Now, Darius, let's start with it, and we have a lot to discuss today. We have some John Tavares news as well, but I want to start with the move. So, they have called up two defensemen here, and you can see here, Cole McWard and Dakota Mermis have both been recalled from the Toronto Marlies. We'll dive into them now in a second, but the reason for that is that, of course, Marshall Rafai has been put on the IR, and Nick Blankenburg have been put on the IR. So, no Ben Danford again. They clearly don't believe in him here. they're rocking with Dakota Mermis and Cole McWard not the names I wanted not super excited about these moves but you now have two more serviceable defensemen gone down well I think Cole McWard is an interesting name we'll get into him in a little bit too because he started the season actually really hot for the Toronto Marlies the thing on Ben Danford I think they're maybe trying to protect them a little bit like I think this road trip you got two games that are really tough and then one in particular which is the next one and I want to talk about that because I'm actually kind of worried about it but uh then you have two games that aren't you know really anything to worry about but Chris Tannumi is also going on this road trip which i think is pretty interesting so uh but somehow he's week to week but he's skating and he's going on the road trip pretty interesting but um i wonder if John Tavares is not going on this road trip partly because he's a new dad and also the injury i do wonder about that too but um you know good news on Chris Tanev of like actually traveling that's great news right and being with the guys but um ultimately these two call-ups like don't like i don't know i didn't think we would see no disrespect to him but Dakota Mermis as a Leaf ever again um i thought he was just going to be with the Marlies and they re-signed him obviously won the Calder Cup and was a big part of that but um again not necessarily the names i was expecting but Cole McWard has started the season pretty well for the Toronto Marlies yeah you can see here it's interesting though Andre Leal was on and he said that McWard and it's true McWard has three assists in five games with the Marlies and he has nine games of NHL experience so this is somebody who potentially has upside I mean he's a name that hasn't had a ton of NHL experience in the past with Dakota Mermis I think we just know what he's going to be and that's a like he's way worse than Nick Blankenburg and he's probably way worse than Marshall Refai but he's going to be someone who can at least play um it is crazy though that McCabe almost went down with an injury OEL almost went down with an injury you have Chris Tanev down with an injury now in the span of two games Nick Blankenburg IR Marshall Refai IR that means i think it's a minimum of three games four games whatever it ends up being so it may not miss weeks and weeks but it is really really rough now when you look at the contracts and everything there obviously Koda Mirmus 812k and uh Cole McWard of the same it's kind of funny that their whole blue line now is filled with guys who we didn't even talk about at all before the season and that's because all the injuries now at the same time there is some interesting defensive pairs from practice today now you have McCabe Radish Riley Stetcher Mirmus and OEL but good news about this is you're really only replacing one guy because on a given night Blankenburg or or five one of them was sitting out so you're really only missing one regular in theory and maybe this switch up can do something for this team now it was reported like you just mentioned there is that Tanev is traveling with the Leafs but is still considered week to week so he's on the ice they're going to take it slow with him but this seems like Tanev should be making a return obviously certainly some point this season but maybe even the next month or so so I don't think it's going to be a Tanev is out the whole year kind of thing it's going to be he'll be back fairly soon so at this point it's going to be ultimately about kind of just putting band-aids everywhere here at this point but yeah Blankenberg who had a pretty good start to his career obviously with the Leafs that goal against the Avalanche he's now going to be out for a while that hurts he's actually been playing some decent hockey but for Chris Tanev it's interesting he's actually with the team and John Tavares is staying home haven't seen him once since the on ice injury love technical difficulties on a Friday but with Chris Tanev uh they're on that road trip for a week so he's week to week maybe he does you know maybe he's going on the road trip just to be with the guys because obviously being injured a lot of players speak about it's hard mentally because you're away from the guy especially on road trips or maybe he could end up playing at the end in that last game against Vancouver right so that'll be interesting to monitor now Nick we have new defensive pairings the forward group basically looks the same and that's great because they're playing very well right we have new defensive pairings uh these are very scary uh and you can see the extras McWard so that's okay but Mermis looks like he's going to factor in and he has more experience it makes sense but you know McWard will be the um the extra coming up you also notice Bobrovsky's name's not there we'll get to that in a second too but uh it was not at practice but they're going to travel to Alberta today I'm a little bit worried about this first game against the Edmonton Oilers not the road trip overall I think they can pick up definitely two wins at least on this road trip um and even Seattle's off to a hot start but you can beat that team I think but the Edmonton Oilers your defense is already not the greatest the Oilers are eight one and one so far this season now half your defense core is injured and you have you know less skilled players playing on it and Connor McDavid is on pace for over Nick over 200 points this season which would be an NHL record which is better than Lemieux or or Gretzky or any of those guys and he's on pace to do that he's slicing and dicing through defense and some of the top defense uh of other teams like nothing so far this year Leon Draisaitl is on pace for 84 less points than Connor McDavid and he's still on pace for 180 points or something it's absolutely absurd so um I am worried about this first game especially defensively for the Leafs but we'll see if we can you know if they can keep pace with uh the Oilers offensively and as you can see here Bobrovsky was not there it's a maintenance day a scheduled maintenance day for him so he didn't actually travel at all this week and now he's going out on the road trip so he should be uh relatively fresh going into this road trip but he hasn't been you know I think he's gotten them one point this season he hasn't been really yet the reason that they've really won a game I think and maybe that can happen here on this road trip yeah we're continuing to see the bottom six obviously yesterday was a fantastic game and Konecny stays there obviously Brendan Duhamel had three points yesterday the question will be can that bottom six which they kind of brought into that's it's ludicrous to say to stop Connor McDavid but to hold the line a little bit not get destroyed against really really top team uh you know top line talents this blue line is i mean Troy Stecher and Morgan Rielly is a horror i mean all of it's really horrifying against the Oilers But at the same time, realistically, this is kind of a good test for them. They won three games in a row. They haven't been against the best teams, but they've also beaten some very good teams like the Avalanche, should have and could have beaten the Vegas Golden Knights. So this is going to be a big test for them. Obviously, you're without Chris Tanev, who I'm at. I mean, this is a game that you pay Chris Tanev and Jake McCabe that tandem for. You're without them there. That being said, the depth has responded so far without John Tavares, without Chris Tanev. Not really on the blue line, but they're four and one without John Tavares all of a sudden. And a lot of that points to Nick Paul on the second line. But at the end of the day here, the lineups are going to remain the same. And the forwards are absolutely fantastic. These games are absolutely critical. We can look at the next few games after the game tonight, of course. And you're going up against the Oilers, then the Flames, the Kraken, and the Canucks. So some very winnable games. If you win the game tomorrow, all of a sudden you're in a position where you can maybe string off five, six wins in a row. Yeah, and you said today they do play tomorrow. I know there's going to be comments about that. We know what you mean, Nick. It's okay. They do play tomorrow against the Oilers. but they're coming off three straight wins like they're feeling pretty good and they're slowly building towards something and we talked about how you know last week i was saying i'm pressing the panic button and i still kind of am on on the defense like i'm not i'm really worried about this game against the oilers but the team in general is slowly building towards something slowly coming together and we were talking about how it was going to take you know 10 to 15 games and we're in that window right now and here you are with three straight wins against you know you could argue that columbus wasn't the greatest opponent but then if you look at the new york rangers that was a really tough test the rangers are one of the best teams in the eastern conference this year and and do not give up a lot uh offensively or defensively from their point of view i guess uh the Leafs were able to score five goals on them so you're feeling pretty good about yourselves going on this road trip i think they can pick up a couple points my biggest concern still is the defense and what can the forwards do to offset that a little bit that's going to be a big thing you brought that up too you know is it stopping Connor McDavid i don't think anyone can stop him right now it's just containing him who can do that on this team that's going to be a big question coming into saturday's game but not only that how do the leafs respond you got to score a lot of goals and the oilers are rolling uh so far but those are a couple updates and last thing before we uh wrap up the bench was that shot of the bench is going viral i made a tiktok about it this morning um you know jim hiller was talking about how it's a great sign i don't know what it is nick i don't know if it's that they got the cameras out of the room because there's less you know social media content going out on like stuff in the room i don't know if it's that they got the cameras out i don't know if Craig Bube was that much of a bad influence in the room uh i don't know if there was a cancer in the room the last couple seasons i i can't put my finger on it exactly because i'm not in there something does seem a little bit different like it just seems like maybe just trading a bunch of guys getting rid of a bunch of guys letting them walk and bringing in new blood with guys who have a purpose take pride in their game it just seems like they all want to play for each other and Troy Stecher was talking about what it means to be a Toronto Maple Leaf too so it does seem like the vibes are different and it did look like to Mike Johnson's credit the World Juniors like on the bench after that goal it was great they're all jumping up and down i don't even know if i saw that when they were in the playoffs after scoring a big goal so um that was fun to see and if that continues like it's just going to bring them closer and closer together and when you have a team that is willing to fight for each other you have something special outside of that Rosty tomorrow's going to be a huge storyline assuming he's starting or either goalie because you're going up against the best offense or at least one of them in the NHL and by far the best player in the league. So comment down below how you feel and why you think the Leafs' vibes are better than ever Sorry, Jeez We'll see you guys in the video tomorrow on the stream tonight