Chris Tanev is out, the Maple Leafs are still losing, and the timing makes the whole thing look a lot messier than the theory behind it.
Toronto scratched Tanev for the second time in three games Thursday night against the Minnesota Wild, and The Athletic’s Dominik Luszczyszyn pegged the team’s win probability drop at just one percent without him. On paper, that’s a small hit. In practice, with the Leafs dropping five straight and seven of eight, it starts to feel like the kind of margin that matters.
The Leafs, from general manager John Chayka on down, appear willing to live with that short-term pain for a bigger payoff later. The idea is simple enough: preserve Tanev now so he can play more often over the course of the season. That logic carries more weight when you remember he played only 11 games last season because of injuries, and that the team built this load management approach while he was still working back from the injury he suffered in just his sixth game this year.
Still, it’s a tough sell when the losses are piling up and the playoff picture is already thin. Toronto is also missing Morgan Rielly, plus key forwards like Kirill Marchenko and Colton Sissons, and the Wild game was close until it wasn’t. The Leafs may have been a little better with Tanev in the lineup, maybe even good enough to steal a point or two.
They certainly didn’t get much from Troy Stecher. Toronto was outscored 3-0 in his 21 minutes on the ice, with all three goals coming from Minnesota’s Matt Boldy.
Stecher’s giveaway late in the first period led directly to Boldy’s opening goal. Later, he couldn’t clear the traffic in front of Anthony Stolarz before Boldy scored on the power play in the second.
And in the third, Stecher was out there when William Nylander’s poor defensive effort set up Boldy’s hat trick and put the game away.
Tanev returned from his earlier absence late last month, played three games, and then sat Sunday against the New Jersey Devils, even though he didn’t want to. That one came with some built-in logic: the Leafs were on the second night of a back-to-back, and they were already without Rielly. Toronto still got shut out 4-0, but the decision at least fit the schedule.
Thursday was different. No back-to-back.
No easy explanation. Just another sign that the Leafs are being extremely careful with a 37-year-old defenseman they believe they need to protect.
He is expected back for Saturday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers, which closes out a brutal homestand. After that, the plan sounds flexible rather than fixed.
Toronto will watch how Tanev’s body responds and adjust from there, including when the Leafs reach their next back-to-back later this month - Friday afternoon in Boston on Nov. 27 and Saturday night in Pittsburgh on Nov. 28.
Not everyone around the team is pretending this is simple. Jim Hiller declined to address the issue Thursday morning, and it’s not hard to see why. He could use Tanev on a blue line that had Cole McWard and Dakota Mermis in the mix for the second time in three games.
His teammates are left to deal with it, too, even as the playoff odds keep shrinking - 15 percent according to Hockey Stats, 9 percent according to MoneyPuck. Jake McCabe, one of Tanev’s closest friends on the roster, kept his answer short.
“I just prepare to play every night and support him as best as I can,” McCabe said. “We’ve got a lot on our plate right now, so that’s what I’m focused on.”
Nick Foligno, now with the Wild and facing his former team, said he understands the idea of protecting an “asset,” but added, “As a player, I can’t imagine what that feels like because we’re all born and bred to play, no matter (what).”
Tanev has made his own feelings clear. Earlier in the week, he said, “I want to play.”
But the Leafs are looking at something bigger than one night in Minnesota. They see a player whose underlying defensive numbers have slipped from his excellent first season in Toronto, a player who looks older and creakier, and a player whose body has already broken down too often.
There’s a league-wide logic to the gamble. NBA teams have done this for years, and the Raptors famously managed Kawhi Leonard carefully on the way to a title.
In hockey, where rosters are deeper, one absence doesn’t hit quite as hard as it would in basketball. The Tampa Bay Lightning even held Yanni Gourde out Thursday for similar reasons.
The real question is whether the Leafs are right to trust the long view. If they keep losing and Tanev’s absence keeps costing them, then healthy legs in the spring won’t mean much. But if they push too hard and lose him for another long stretch, they’re worse off anyway.
That’s the bet Toronto is making: fewer games now, more games later. And after what Tanev went through last season - including the innocuous bumps from Dawson Mercer and Matvei Michkov, then the groin injury in his third game back in late December that led to season-ending surgery - the Leafs are hoping caution can at least tilt the odds in their favor.
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Chris Tanev has already been held out of two games by the Maple Leafs as part of load management, and the pause has only sharpened the sense that Toronto is trying to manage a defender whose workload matters as much as his presence. For a team that leans on structure and veteran stability, any sign that one of its most trusted blue-liners needs extra maintenance is worth watching closely, especially when the broader conversation around the roster is already drifting toward aging core pieces and whether they can still hold up over a full season.
The concern is not just about availability, either. There has been growing analysis suggesting Tanevs defensive impact has slipped in recent seasons, which puts added pressure on Toronto to get the most out of him without overextending him. And with other roster questions still hanging over the club, from John Tavaress performance to the way goaltending numbers are being read, the Leafs are left trying to sort through a few uneasy trends at once while Anthony Stolarzs play continues to trend in a more encouraging direction. [Read more 🡒]
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Hiller also weighed in on several individual performances, including Gavin McKenna, John Tavares and William Nylander, as he tried to separate the rough results from what he still believes the team can become. There was frustration in the room, but also a measure of cautious optimism, with Hiller suggesting the Leafs still have enough talent to turn things around if the details start to improve. [Read more 🡒]