The Maple Leafs went to Vancouver last night and played like it was afternoon practice. It was not pretty. Matt Murray let in four goals in his first game back from injury. Here’s our recap of the game:

Matthews, Tavares, and O’Reilly get banged up in loss to Canucks

The most troubling part wasn’t simply yet another loss to a bad team, it was the potential injuries. First up was Matthews:

Fortunately, Matthews returned later in the game and looked OK, but then another Leaf was injured from a shot, and he didn’t come back, and it was the shiny new acquisition.

Sheldon Keefe said O’Reilly’s injury was serious, but it’s going to need some time to evaluate exactly how bad it is.

“He was unable to return. It is serious enough that this was the case. In terms of a timeline, we will have an update for you on Monday.”

The full post-game interview transcript is here at MLHS.

The Leafs road trip out west has ended with two wins and two losses. It’s hard to draw conclusions here as the wins were quite decisive in their favour, while the losses were really sloppy.

The Leafs still have one more game on the road, but now it’s here in the east against the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday, after which they get three days off, so expect this to be a quiet week.

The Marlies are on a swing through Pennsylvania right now and it’s had a rough start. They lost 4-3 to the Hershey Bears on Friday, then lost 4-3 to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms last night. Next up is a match against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Wednesday (home to Alex Nylander).

Other News

The Leafs likely future playoff opponents in Tampa had a really rough game against the Sabres yesterday afternoon and their coach had an interesting solution, benching their top three stars for the entire third period.

Maybe he can try this again in the playoffs against the Leafs?

I STILL HAT THE MALGIN TRADE!
I HAT IT!

You all love weird goals, so here’s a really weird one. The best view of what actually happened is at the very end of the clip.

IIHF - Women’s Tournament in Shenzhen postponed
The IIHF has postponed the event in due to COVID travel restriction concerns. This event is the one which where the winner is promoted to the top group of women’s hockey.

Paving the way: 3 former N.L. players reminisce about the beginnings of women's hockey at Canada Games - CBC
“I remember when we first got up there [to PEI], ... we went to this talk in an auditorium where it was all the female teams,” said Stone. “It was pretty awesome to be in that room and seeing the room was full of all these girls who were doing the same thing.” Among them were a pair of players destined to become household names — Hayley Wickenheiser and Cassie Campbell-Pascal, who would go on to national hockey careers.

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