Toronto Maple Leafs Vs Hurricanes + Injury Updates + St. Pats Jerseys

As is a yearly tradition, the Toronto Maple Leafs (38-19-8) will be wearing their green St. Pat’s jerseys tonight to mark the St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

This year, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be sporting a new-look St. Pat’s jersey which they unveiled earlier this week. They are ditching the uniform they have used since 2017 and replacing it with an update look.

In their annual St. Patrick’s game, they will be taking on the Carolina Hurricanes (40-20-6).

The Hurricanes will be featuring new acquisitions Evgeny Kuznetsov and Jake Guentzel in their lineup. The Hurricanes are currently on a three-game road winning streak and will look to extend that tonight.

Toronto Maple Leafs Vs Hurricanes + Injury Updates

If he is available to play, it will also mark the first time that Ilya Lyubushkin will face his former team (of about 5 seconds) since he was part of a three-team trade a few weeks ago featuring the Hurricanes. He missed practice on Friday for undisclosed reasons but did take part in optional skate and is projected to take part in warm-ups.

A season filled with much uncertainty between the pipes almost got even worse as Ilya Samsonov went down during practice. It looked serious as he was escorted off the ice, thankfully, head coach Sheldon Keefe opened his post-practice availability with reassuring words “Sammy’s fine, he’ll play tonight”.

This is good news as Samsonov has been on fire since returning from clearing waivers and being demoted to the AHL.

We also received an injury update on Calle Jarnkrok yesterday after he crashed into the boards and left Thursday night's game against the Philadelphia Flyers. His injury is listed as a “hand injury” according to Keefe and he will be “week-to-week."

It has been a tough break for Jarnkrok this season, he only just returned less than two weeks ago from a similar injury he sustained in January. Hopefully, he can recover in time for the playoffs. 

Finally, there was an injury update on Mitch Marner. NHL insider Darren Dreger reported earlier this week that Marner suffered a high-ankle sprain that is believed to be minor. His timeline is unknown but is currently listed as day-to-day. The star forward will not play tonight but has skated the past two days, which is a positive development.

For the opposition, Teuvo Terevainen will miss tonight's game due to what is labelled an upper-body injury. The Hurricanes will also not be starting former Leaf goaltender Frederik Andersen who recently returned from blood clot issues that had him sidelined since November 4th, 2023. They will instead be starting Pyotr Kotchetkov, he will face-off against Samsonov.