Toronto Maple Leafs: Mitch Marner Injury History and Updates

The Toronto Maple Leafs continue to be plagued by injury throughout the 2022-2023 NHL season, but luckily, Mitch Marner has been the exception.

For most of his NHL career, the Toronto Maple Leafs soon to be all-time-great has managed to stay relatively healthy.

While many of their defenseman have gone down the Leafs have had much better luck upfront only losing a couple of players for very short periods of time including currently number one center Auston Matthews.

Fortunately for the Leafs, despite all the injuries they’ve sustained this season, Mitch Marner has been able to stay healthy and avoid joining many of his teammates on the injured reserved list.

Marner has been in the league for 6 full years and is in the process of a stellar 7th. Throughout the past few years he has a surprisingly low number of missed games, especially next to some of his contemporaries.

He has only missed a total of 27 games throughout his career however his presence is sorely missed whenever he is out. The Toronto Maple Leafs have an all time points percentage of .481 without Mitch Marner and a record of 11-12-4. It is evident the Leafs are clearly better with him in the lineup so lets take a look at the few reasons that have held him out up to this point.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Mitch Marner Injury History

Shoulder Injury – 2017

In February 2017, late in his rookie campaign with the Maple Leafs, Marner tried to check Boone Jenner of the Columbus Blue Jackets late in the second, but lost an edge and fell into the boards. He missed five games that season due to the resulting shoulder injury.

Ankle Injury – 2019

In November 2019, after going two full seasons without injury, Marner suffered a high ankle sprain early in a game against the Philadelphia Flyers. This sidelined him for four weeks missing eleven games in the shortened season. Per the Toronto Star he was “relieved he didn’t break anything” and was cleared to return December 4th, 2019 in a loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

Rest Day – 2021

On May 14th 2021, for the final game of the season, Marner was given the night off along with teammates John Tavares, T.J. Brodie and Alex Kerfoot all of whom hadn’t missed a game in the shortened 2020-2021 season.

Shoulder Injury – 2021

In December 2021, Marner’s shoulder would give out again and this time due to a little friendly fire. After being hit by teammate Jake Muzzin at practice Marner got an MRI which left him out of the lineup for four weeks missing a total of six games. He returned in a victory against the Ottawa Senators on January 1st 2022

COVID-19 – 2022

Just two games after returning from his shoulder injury, Mitch Marner was placed in COVID protocol on January 7th, 2022. He remained out of the lineup for eight days and returned after the mandatory quarantine period. He returned on January 15th in a game against the St. Louis Blues netting himself two points which would be the start of what would go on to be one of the best calendar years in modern NHL history.

Rest Day – 2022

On May 29th 2022, the final game of the season was to be against the Leafs rival Boston Bruins. Marner was given the night off along with many of his teammates as well as many of the opposing Bruins.

Conclusion

The young Toronto Maple Leafs superstar has missed very little time in his NHL career.

For a player of his size, there were many concerned when he was drafted that he would be unable to compete and stay healthy when playing in the NHL.

Fast forward 7 years and he is one of the teams most durable and dependable forwards logging an average of 19:34 per night in 478 games played in his career and in the top 10 of the NHL’s all time points per 60 leaders. Of those players, only Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Auston Matthews, and Steven Stamkos have career totals higher then his 247 blocked shots.