Sheldon Keefe reveals why the Leafs opted to place Klingberg on LTIR before the severity of his injury is known
The Toronto Maple Leafs are the subject of a lot of conversation following Thursday's events involving injured defenseman John Klingberg. For those who may have missed it, the Leafs had placed Klingberg on Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) on Thursday, which led to a lot of dialogue on social media surrounding whether or not the Leafs are using LTIR to get rid of bad contracts.
Of course, the narrative is more interesting than the actual story, which is that Matt Murray and John Klingberg are both injured. Murray had surgery before the start of this season and the recovery time is expected to keep him out all year. Meanwhile, with Klingberg, his future is less certain, which is to say that we don't yet know whether his injury will keep him out all year or that he'll be back at some point.
On Friday, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe touched on the Klingberg to LTIR fiasco. Contrary to what the conspiracy theorists are suggesting, it's clear from what Keefe had to say that the Leafs are still just as uncertain about Klingberg's future than the rest of us. Keefe told the media ahead of Friday's 2:00pm ET matinee against the Blackhawks that Klingberg's LTIR placement was nothing more than just to provide him some time to determine what the next steps will be.
Klingberg has not played since November 11th against the Vancouver Canucks. It was originally thought that he'd play at least one of the Leafs' two games in front of his friends and family in Stockholm during the Global Series, but with the injury being as limiting as it's been for him, it just wasn't in the cards.
| POLL | ||
NOVEMBRE 24 | 264 ANSWERS Sheldon Keefe reveals why the Leafs opted to place Klingberg on LTIR before the severity of his injury is known Do you think the Leafs are trying to circumvent the cap with Klingberg landing on LTIR? | ||
| LOL, no.. he's legitimately injured | 122 | 46.2 % |
| Maybe, but it also might just be a coincidence | 62 | 23.5 % |
| Yes, they're trying to get out of a bad deal | 80 | 30.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
