Toronto Maple Leafs: Jake Muzzin Is Out For the Rest of Series

The Toronto Maple Leafs may have won Game 2 against the Columbus Blue Jackets but they lost one of their most important defenseman.

Defense was already an issue for the Toronto Maple Leafs and now it’ll get even harder without veteran defenseman Jake Muzzin.

When the Leafs acquired Muzzin last year at the NHL Trade Deadline, they looked at him to be the next best defenseman on the Leafs, beside Morgan Rielly.

And that’s exactly what Muzzin has provided.

In his short stint with the team, he’s been a leader on and off the ice and has been a great player, so this injury is devastating.

Muzzin is Out For the Remainder of Series

With only a few minutes left in a game that Toronto was about to win, Muzzin suffered a freak-injury.

In all my years of watching hockey, this is one injury you don’t see happen too often and it’s so unfortunate that this happened. Although Pierre-Luc Dubois cross-checked Muzzin in the back, the injury didn’t occur because of that.

As you can see in the video below, it occurred freakishly when he was trying to catch his balance and ran into the other Blue Jackets player.

When the injury happened, initially it didn’t look bad but after a few seconds everyone realized how serious it was. Any neck injury could be career threatening, so the medical staff did a tremendous job taking care of Muzzin and treating him.

Although the injury looked very serious, there was some good news which the Toronto Maple Leafs reported earlier today.

As a result of the injury, he’s not going to be available for the remainder of the series and will have to quarantine because he visited a hospital.

What The Muzzin Injury Means to the Leafs Blue-Line?

Now that Muzzin is out for the series, Morgan Rielly is going to have to step up and play even more minutes than the team leading 23:31 minutes per game he was averaging thus far.

Originally paired on the top defensive core with Justin Holl, Holl is now going to have to find a new defensive partner to play with.

So, who’s going to step in?

Well, there’s two players that have a chance to replace Muzzin.

It’s either going to be Martin Marincin or Rasmus Sandin, and my money is on Marincin.

Although I’d rather see Sandin step up, Marincin is the safe player for Sheldon Keefe to dress. Marincin has only played six career NHL playoff games, but he had a great stretch of hockey during the Toronto Marlies Calder Cup Championship run, which Keefe coached.

In Game 3 of a playoff series, I don’t think the team has as much faith in the rookie Sandin to deliver, compared to Marincin. Although Marincin’s game isn’t flashy, he has a long stick and can play stay-at-home defense, compared to Sandin, who this moment may be too big for.

All Leafs fans can hope for is that the team’s offense can outweigh their defense for two more wins and get past Columbus with hopes of Muzzin returning for the round of 16.

Best wishes to Muzzin for a speedy recovery and let’s hope he hasn’t played his last game of the 2019-20 season yet.