Another Maple Leafs star forward falls and misses practice!

The Toronto Maple Leafs are on edge. While head coach Craig Berube has commented that captain Auston Matthews’ upper-body injury isn’t too serious and that star forward William Nylander is expected to be fine, the injury bug appears to be settling early in Toronto.

On Thursday night, it was a close call when Nylander did not return to the preseason contest against the Montreal Canadiens for what the team called precautionary reasons, after falling and hitting his head on Habs’ Christian Dvorak’s knee. Nylander was back-checking on the play when teammate Nick Robertson attempted pushed him with his stick into the zone, which knocked him off balance. Nylander remained down initially before leaving the ice under his own power and heading straight to the dressing room.

However on Friday, another star player was missing from the Leafs’ practice as it was confirmed that John Tavares would be absent today. The veteran forward was banged up on a hit in the first period of last night’s game while breaking the puck out of the defensive zone by Canadiens winger Michael Pezzetta. He slowly made his way to the bench in visible discomfor and then saw limited ice time the rest of the way. Berube said “The leg was stiffing up” and that the lack of ice time was because “I didn’t want to take a chance.”

Tavares' absence from practice comes on top of Matthews and Nylander being present yet banged up, but also with forwards Alex Steeves and Calle Järnkrok missing due to lower-body ailments. 

Tavares still managed to score a goal and finished the game with just 12:35 of ice time in a 2-1 victory over the Canadiens.
On top of this injury news, the Maple Leafs also confirmed that defenseman Dakota Mermis was now considered week-to-week after undergoing surgery.

The 2024-25 season hasn’t even started for real yet, but the injury bug is already rearing its ugly head in Toronto…