Nikita Soshnikov

He tells us today that his injury was suffered in his last game with the Marlies last year but it didn’t come to light until he had trained for two months.

The Leafs have chosen to “shutdown” Soshnikov and have him start the season in the Marlies. As detailed here, that move has implications beyond his health.  It helps with their crowded roster problem, and might leave Soshnikov waiver exempt for the whole season, depending on how long he plays in the AHL.

Tyler Bozak

Bozak is suffering from, well something!  It doesn’t seem to be keeping him from practice, but it is keeping him out of preseason games.  With the Leafs these days, you never know what’s going on until a guy is suddenly on IR at the start of the season.

Josh Leivo

Mike Babcock talks about all of these issues in his presser today:

So, Babs is a bit chippy today.  And this was the first anyone had heard of Leivo having an injury.  Babcock is cryptic in his comments, sounding almost grumpily philosophical about who is at fault when a player is injured.

Soshnikov sounded ready to get back on the horse and prove he’s NHL ready, but where does that leave Leivo?  In the video the Leafs posted of his media scrum, there’s not a word about injury.

But TSN’s Kristen Shilton was on the job.  She reported the news that Leivo has some kind of “maintenance issue”, but it’s all good now.  She also reports that Leivo hasn’t missed any practices. You should all read her take on the situation.

We’ll see how good it all is if he plays in the Friday game in Hamilton.  Either way, it doesn’t sound like he’s in Babcock’s good books.  If you listen to him (1:24 of the video), you likely won’t get the impression he’s pleased with the Leivo situation.  But he seems more unruffled with the Soshnikov situation.

Yegor Korshkov

The hit happened in the third period of a game where Korshkov had scored his third goal of the season.  No word on his status, but if there’s news by Sunday, there will be an update you in the European report.