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The Toronto Maple Leafs embark on a three-game Western road swing on Tuesday against Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers, but the game will not be a reunion with Zach Hyman, as the former Leaf will miss the game with a shoulder injury.
The road trip has already been altered with the postponement of the Leafs game in Calgary on Thursday due to a COVID outbreak with the Flames and may be further derailed with the news that two Vancouver players (who the Leafs play on Saturday) have entered the league’s COVID protocol and that the Carolina Hurricanes (the Canucks opponent on Sunday) had two players remain in Vancouver after testing positive and postponed their Tuesday game in Minnesota after four more players tested positive).
Oilers forward Ryan McLeod has also tested positive and will not play.
The recent outbreak (23 players in the last 36 hours per TSN’s Chris Johnston is increasing the likelihood of NHL players not participating in the Winter Olympics in Beijing next February.
No team could potentially be more affected by participation in the Olympics than Toronto, with as many as eight players (Auston Matthews, Jack Campbell - USA, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, Morgan Rielly -CAN, William Nylander - SWE, Ondrej Kase, Petr Mrazek – CZE) potentially going.
"I think we all hope to go but clearly I think things are a little bit more uneasy than they were," Tavares said on Monday. "There's going to be some hurdles and some challenges currently (as) things stand and the way they present themselves. But yeah, probably a little more uneasy, at least speaking for myself, than I was a number of weeks ago or a few months ago. It’s such a rare opportunity, hopefully, we can find a way that makes sense."
With the news that testing positive in China could necessitate quarantining for as long as five weeks and the possibility of more games getting postponed due to the new Omicron variant, (both which could have an adverse effect on NHL clubs after the Olympic break) it is hard to believe that a number of players will choose not to go or that the NHL will pass on the three-week hiatus in February.
Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe indicated that Travis Dermott will return after missing three games with a shoulder injury, recent call-up Brett Seney will make his Leafs debut and Ilya Mikheyev his season debut after missing two months with a broken thumb.
Dermott will partner with Justin Holl on the bottom pairing and Timothy Liljegren will remain with Jake Muzzin, while Seney will replace Alex Steeves on the fourth line. The Leafs will also be waiting on the results of the appeal on Jason Spezza’s suspension, as the hearing is being held on Tuesday could reduce the suspension from six games to a lower number.
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