The Toronto Maple Leafs’ injury luck on the blue line just took another hit, and this one closes the door on a possible call-up.
Ben Danford, who had been listed by the Toronto Marlies as day-to-day while they sorted out what was wrong, is now officially week-to-week with a broken wrist. That puts a temporary stop to any thought of him helping the Maple Leafs at the NHL level.
The timing is rough. Toronto has already been dealing with injuries after losing Morgan Rielly, Jack Roslovic and Colton Sissons in back-to-back games this past weekend. On top of that, Chris Tanev has been sitting out games for planned maintenance, which had created a path for Danford to potentially get a look.
There was still a cap issue to work through before any promotion could happen, since the Maple Leafs would have needed to clear some space on their tagging room. Even so, Danford had emerged as an interesting option if Toronto needed another defenceman.
He is still developing, but a chance to skate with the NHL group would have mattered. Whether that meant top four minutes or a third-pairing role, the value was in the experience itself. Instead, the broken wrist pushes that possibility back.
Danford will now stay with the Marlies once he recovers and focus on getting back up to speed. He’ll need time to feel comfortable again and find his game before Toronto can really think about bringing him up.
It’s a setback, but not one that changes how the organization views him long term. The bigger issue for the Maple Leafs is that they may now have to search outside the organization for help.
With Rielly, Nick Blankenburg and Danford unavailable, John Chayka and the Maple Leafs may need to look to the waiver wire for an NHL defenceman or consider calling up Philippe Myers to help spread out the workload. Tanev, meanwhile, is not injured - he simply needed a game off for maintenance - so there is really only one blue line spot left to fill.
Toronto had a chance to get Danford into the mix, even if it would have taken some roster juggling. That chance is gone for now, and his attention turns to recovering from the broken wrist and getting back to where he was.
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