Maple Leafs place Mitch Marner on LTIR on Saturday.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have made a significant roster move on Saturday morning.

In an official announcement, the Maple Leafs have announced that star forward Mitch Marner has been placed on long term injured reserve.

We've certainly come a long way from the original diagnosis of a "day to day" type of injury that was originally reported by Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe.

To be clear this does not mean that Marner will be out for roughly a month of action starting today, but instead the Maple Leafs are making the move retroactive to March 7th, when Marner was initially injured against the Boston Bruins.

The Maple Leafs have gone out of their way to clarify that the move has been made in order to provide the team with additional cap relief, cap relief that will allow them to call up defenseman Marshall Rifai from the Toronto Marlies, rather than due to a change in Marner's status.

A designation to LTIR means a player must miss a minimum of 24 days or 10 games due to injury, which won't be a big deal in Marner's case. Marner has almost reached that threshold and, unless they were planning on using him tonight in Buffalo, this move won't have any impact on his eligibility to return to the lineup in the future.