The Toronto Maple Leafs opened training camp for their centennial season at the MasterCard Center in Etobicoke, ON on Thursday with 79 players on their camp roster, minus eight players participating in the World Cup of Hockey, injured goaltender Frederik Andersen (still recovering from an upper body injury) and injured veterans Stephane Robidas and Nathan Horton.
You can now add Joffrey Lupul to the list of unavailables, as the veteran winger was not present after failing a team physical.
“It is with deep regret that I will be unable to attend training camp and start the season with the Leafs due to injury.” Lupul said in a press release on Thursday. “I pledge to work hard with a view to return to playing this season. Hockey is the only life I have known. This is an extremely emotional time for me. Accordingly, I will not be making any further comment at this time.”
The 12-year NHL veteran underwent stomach muscle surgery in February and was shut down for the remainder of the season after scoring 11 goals and three assists in 46 games. According to Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello, Lupul rehabbed this summer in hopes of making a return to the lineup.
“There was a chance of (Lupul) getting back on the ice(after rehabbing the injury), he did so and he had the same discomfort (as before the surgery).” Lamoriello said. “We brought him back and he saw our doctors and when he went through the physical, we both felt that he wouldn’t be unable to play.”
Horton (four years remaining at $5.3 Million AAV) and Robidas (one more season at $3 Million) will likely find their way to long-term injured reserve (LTIR) before the start of the season, since Toronto is currently over the $73 Million salary cap.
Lupul has two more years left on a five-year, $26.5 Million contract signed in 2013 and will begin the season on injured reserve, but the Leafs could shift the soon-to-be 33-year-old to LTIR to open up cap space during the season if they wish to make room under the salary cap.
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Lamoriello indicated that the players playing in the WCH (Auston Matthews, Morgan Rielly, Milan Michalek, Jhonas Enroth, Roman Polak, James van Riemsdyk, Leo Komarov and Nikita Zaitsev) will not be travelling to Nova Scotia, even if their teams are eliminated and will join the club after the weekend and exhibition game against Ottawa on Monday.
Polak and Michalek(Czech Republic), Komarov(Finland) and van Riemsdyk(USA) have already been eliminated, Enroth is advancing to the semi-final with the point earned in Sweden’s 4-3 overtime loss to North America on Wednesday, but the fate of Matthews, Rielly and Zaitsev rests on the result of the Russia-Finland game on Thursday.
If Finland wins, North America will advance to play Team Canada. If Russia wins, they will face Mike Babcock’s imposing squad.
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