Leafs place goaltender on Long-Term Injured Reserve
As expected, the Toronto Maple Leafs have officially placed goaltender Petr Mrazek on Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) on Friday. Mrazek's season is effectively over, as he is expected to miss at least the next six weeks with a lower-body injury.
In terms of how this will impact the team going forward, the Leafs won't have to worry about any salary cap juggling, as Mrazek's $3.8M salary no longer counts against the cap, meaning that the Leafs will now have the ability to activate Jake Muzzin and Ondrej Kase with little next to no inconvenience.
Mrazek's first season in Toronto was an unmitigated disaster - and that's putting it mildly. Between the penchant for injury, the wildly inconsistent play and the 30-year-old actually clearing waivers on deadline day, it's really anyone's guess what's going to happen to Mrazek this offseason.
Not all of Mrazek's tenure in Toronto was bad. He had a stint in January where he posted great numbers and looked to be returning to form, and his play in his starts leading up to his injury was trending in the right direction. That said, it was fairly obvious that head coach Sheldon Keefe no longer trusted Mrazek and I'd be surprised if the Leafs don't either trade him or buy him out this summer.
Mrazek will be eligible to return in the playoffs, either sometime during the first or second round, but at that point, are the Leafs going to trust that he will be able to come in and do the job effectively if called upon? My gut tells me that they're going to run Campbell and Kallgren as a tandem to see what they have in the young Swedish netminder before the playoffs begin. If he appears to be holding his own, I sincerely doubt they'll bring Mrazek back in cold, unless of course they have no other choice.
| POLL | ||
AVRIL 1 | 374 ANSWERS Leafs place goaltender on Long-Term Injured Reserve Has Mrazek played his last game as a Leaf? | ||
| Yes | 235 | 62.8 % |
| No, he'll be back in the playoffs | 100 | 26.7 % |
| No, he'll be back next year | 39 | 10.4 % |
| List of polls | ||
