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Leafs organization ravaged by COVID, game with Pittsburgh postponed |
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The next time you will see the Toronto Maple Leafs will be in 2022, as the NHL postponed their final game before the New Year after the club revealed that on top of the large number of players on the NHL roster that are in the NHL’s COVID protocol, most of the Toronto Marlies have been hit by the Omicron variant.
"The Marlies had 24 players and five staff test positive for COVID-19, the Leafs 14 players and seven staff members between active roster players and injured reserve players." Leafs GM Kyle Dubas said in a Zoom media availability on Sunday.
John Tavares and Ondrej Kase were on the ice Sunday for the first time since testing positive in Vancouver on December 17 and forwards Wayne Simmonds, Jason Spezza and Alex Kerfoot were cleared and participated in practice at the Ford Performance Centre on Monday, but the lack of defensemen and goaltenders clearly was a factor in the NHL postponing Wednesday’s matchup against Pittsburgh.
"I don't believe we would have enough defenseman to play and we would be also short one goaltender," Dubas said. "Ian Scott practiced today, but he's still on injured reserve. So we have Joe Woll that came in and practiced today, but I think we would probably still be short one or two depending on the way things shake out."
The Leafs now have six games to make up and will have the three weeks previously reserved for the Olympic break to make up those games, but there has been some speculation with Omicron leading to over 9400 positive cases in Ontario on Monday and the province limiting fan access to 50% (along with Alberta and Manitoba) of the schedule being further altered to play games in the States where there is full capacity and shift home games in Canada later in the season for the purposes of maximizing revenue.
We haven't had any insights into (rescheduling) the postponed games. Certainly, those dates and the three weeks opening up (with what) was supposed to be the Olympic break helps to ease the congestion." Dubas said. (but there was) nothing in regards to games being moved to Canada at all."
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World Junior Update
Leafs prospects Topi Niemela and Roni Hirvonen were pointless in Finland’s 3-1 victory over Germany on Sunday, but 2021 second-rounder Matthew Knies scored the opening goal for the US in a 3-2 victory over Slokavia in Red Deer, Alberta.
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