It had taken a while, but NHL players will be officially back at the Olympics this year. Once again, we will be able to witness the best-on-best battles between the countries for hockey world supremacy. The Toronto Maple Leafs had the honour of having three of their players being selected onto the Olympic roster to represent their respective countries. Those Leafs were William Nylander and Oliver Ekman-Larsson for Team Sweden, and Auston Matthews for Team U.S.A.
However, with the way things have been going in recent days, Toronto fans will be wondering if there will be any Maple Leafs players left to cheer for by the time the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics begin. That is because the Leafs have been hit with hard-luck injury woes already for two of those three unfortunate candidates.
Will there be any Maple Leafs players left to watch at the 2026 Olympics?
Earlier last week, Nylander had to leave the game against the Vegas Golden Knights due to a lower-body injury that likely resulted from his mishap near the boards during a goal celebration. That ailment has since been revealed to be a groin injury. More worrisome was the fact that Leafs’ head coach Craig Berube indicated that “he’s not sure when Nylander will be back on the ice”, putting him out indefinitely.
As for Ekman-Larsson, he was also injured on an innocent-looking play in the game against the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday. The Leafs defenseman got tangled up with Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond and ended up falling awkwardly to the ice. According to TSN hockey insider Chris Johnston, Ekman-Larsson is expected to miss some time with an unclear prognosis. However, fellow TSN insider Pierre LeBrun speculated that the injury likely shouldn’t affect the star defenseman’s availablility for the Olympics. Nevertheless, the uncertainty with Ekman-Larsson’s ailment still made things quite uneasy in Leafs nation.
With that, it only leaves Matthews as the only healthy Leaf left heading into the Olympics, which is set to start in another couple weeks of time. But don’t forget, the Maple Leafs captain isn’t immune to ailments as he has also missed some time due to a lower-body injury earlier this season. So in effect each of the three Olympians have experienced their nicks and bruises already with Toronto this year. Perhaps the Leafs should seriously consider bubble-wrapping Matthews in their remaining games before the Olympics to ensure that at least one of them makes the trip overseas.
But jokes aside, it would be most ideal if all three of Matthews, Nylander and Ekman-Larsson all end up playing at the Olympics as hockey fans have craved for best-on-best hockey at the international stage for a long time. So the only way to have that kind of elite action is to have every star player healthy and playing the highest quality of hockey that one would want to see. As a result, here we wish a speedy recovery for our fellow Maple Leafs. Otherwise, Leafs fans could be forced to cheer on more former players, which of course would include their beloved Mitch Marner.