The Toronto Maple Leafs blue line continues to be ravaged by injuries and have made their most recent transaction in response, calling up two players to replace two other ones who are going to Injured Reserve.
Announced by the Maple Leafs on Friday morning, they have called up defensemen Dakota Mermis and Cole McWard from the AHL's Toronto Marlies. In a corresponding move, they have placed both Nick Blankenburg and Marshall Rifai to the Injured Reserve list. Both players will have to miss at least seven days of action, but one will certainly miss more.
Leafs have called up Dakota Mermis and Cole McWard from the Marlies. And moved Nick Blankenburg and Marshall Rifai to IR@Ozoon_CA
— David Alter (@davidalter) October 23, 2026
According to TSN's Mark Masters, Rifai is out week-to-week and the 28-year-old will be most likely missing much more than the seven-day minimum required for IR. As for Blankenburg, on Thursday night against the Rangers he suffered a massive hit along the boards thanks to Will Cuylle and had to leave the game. He got crunched, basically. There was no official word on how long he'll be out, but placing him on IR immediately tells us that it might be longer than we would have liked.
Unfortunately, there is a ever-growing concern about the Leafs blue line and the personnel that are available.
Maple Leafs' major weakness is getting weaker
The Maple Leafs are already suffering on the blue line. They lost Chris Tanev earlier in the season due to injury and with him, a major reason to be confident about the Leafs being able to prevent some scoring chances. They haven't been good defensively at all and while Rifai and Blankenburg aren't worldbeaters or anything, it is still making them weaker and weaker in a position that they already needed to address by adding external help fairly soon.
The forwards are elite. The goaltenders are being mediocre. The defense is looking terrible and that is probably affecting the goaltending performance by a whole lot. It is something that, again, John Chayka has most likely been targeting and now there is even more rush to get something done.
A defensive group made up of Morgan Rielly, Darren Raddysh, and Jake McCabe at the top can only take you so far. Oliver Ekman-Larsson isn't really a consistent performer anymore and while Troy Stecher is the current feel-good story on this team after scoring the game-winning goal over the Rangers, he is more ideal as a No. 6 defender than someone who is important to your blue line.
Could there be help on the way? Maybe. Let's just hope that they don't lose any more defensemen in the near future.
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