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The Toronto Maple Leafs are returning to the ice, or should we say the few players who are not ill will skate at the Ford Performance Centre on Sunday, as the NHL tests everyone coming out of the holiday pause in hopes of resuming the schedule sometime this week.
The league currently has to make up 64 games (which will now be possible with last week’s announcement that NHL players will not be going to the Olympics in February) and five of those involve Toronto (road games vs. Calgary, Vancouver, Seattle, and Columbus, and a home game against St. Louis).
The Leafs appear to be one of the hardest teams to be hit by the Omicron variant, as the club announced on Sunday that defenseman Jake Muzzin has entered the NHL’s COVID protocol.
Muzzin makes 14 Toronto players on the list, with Alex Kerfoot, John Tavares, Jason Spezza, Wayne Simmonds, Jack Campbell, T.J. Brodie, and Travis Dermott diagnosed in Vancouver last weekend, David Kà¤mpf, Ilya Mikheyev, Petr Mrà¡zek, and Rasmus Sandin earlier this week, Morgan Rielly on Thursday and William Nylander on Friday.
It is possible that some players who went into protocol in the first wave will be available over the next few days, but it is possible that the NHL will postpone more games when they provide an update on Sunday night.
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World Junior Update
Leafs prospects Topi Niemela and Roni Hirvonen will play in the tournament’s first game vs. Germany, while 2021 second-rounder Matthew Knies and the US take on Slovakia to close out the day.
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