Craig Berube confirms Leafs are down to just 7 regular forwards.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost several of their regular forwards for one reason or another and on Saturday, Leafs head coach Craig Berube confirmed that his team would be moving forward with a very different looking group of forwards for Sunday's game against the Utah Hockey Club.

Berube confirmed some bad news on Saturday when he revealed that forward Max Domi was in fact ruled out for Sunday's game against Utah, and his wording leads me to believe that Domi will miss even more time than that. Berube stated that Domi was still in the rehab process and wasn't even ready to return to the ice just yet.

"He’s still rehabbing." said Berube on Saturday. "He’s not ready to get on the ice yet."

That now leaves the Maple Leafs with a massive number of forwards out of the lineup including captain Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies, veteran forward Max Pacioretty, Calle Jarnkrok, David Kampf and of course the aforementioned Domi. Additionally the Maple Leafs are still without the services of enforcer Ryan Reaves who is still serving a suspension for his brtual hit on Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse.

All of this has combined to leave the Maple Leafs with only 7 of their regular forwards in the lineup, obviously a less than ideal scenario.

Thankfully for the Maple Leafs they have had some relatively good replacements at their disposal, including the recent addition of rookie forward Fraser Minten. Minten played against the Vegas Golden Knights earlier this week, a game in which he logged 15 minutes and 43 seconds of ice time, took on 21 shifts, and of course scored a goal in his season debut.

The Maple Leafs also recently signed Alex Nylander to an NHL contract in order to bolster their depleted lineup, and it sounds like that decision may have had the added benefit of providing a jolt to his brother, Leafs star forward William Nylander.

"He's earned it. Injuries happen and guys get an opportunity ... we're all excited for him and I know his brother is really excited," said Berube. "Willy was scoring a lot of goals today in practice."

Of course the Leafs would ideally prefer to have their regular group on the ice but as Berube correctly points out injuries are going to happen in a sport as physically intensive as the one played in the NHL. The Maple Leafs appear to have found a solid silver lining however, going 7-2-1 over the course of their last 10 games in spite having several players out of the lineup over that stretch.