Alex Steeves Reassigned To AHL; Auston Matthews Expected To Return
The Toronto Maple Leafs continue their roster tweaks, this time sending Alex Steeves back down to the minor leagues. The move comes with Wayne Simmonds on waivers and Auston Matthews appearing to be ready to return after taking in a full practice yesterday.
Steeves, 23, will be down in time to rejoin the Toronto Marlies for their morning match against the Utica Comets today, but likely means he won’t be playing for the Maple Leafs this evening. The young undrafted forward has been outstanding at the AHL level, scoring 39 points in 44 games this season and generally being one of the team’s most reliable players.
Through two games this season and three last year, Steeves has just one point at the NHL level and hasn’t recorded a goal just yet. After becoming a star at Notre Dame, he signed an entry-level deal with the Maple Leafs that keeps him under contract through the 2023-24 season.
If this indicates Matthews’ return, it will be nearly bang on the three-week timeline he was originally given. The star forward last played on January 25 against the New York Rangers, before being shut down due to a knee sprain.
Without him, Toronto has gone 2-3, including an embarrassing loss to the last-place Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, in which they were outshot 40-29. Getting him back ahead of the deadline is no small thing, as the Maple Leafs can assess the strength of their group at full health.
Toronto Maple Leafs Recall Three Players
Feb 14: All three players are back up today, ready to rejoin the team and participate in tomorrow’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks. During their short stint in the AHL, Steeves scored the game-winner (assisted by Holmberg), and Woll picked up his 14th win in 15 appearances.
Feb 13: The trio of players that came up for Toronto’s last couple of games have been returned to the minors, as the team announced Pontus Holmberg, Alex Steeves, and Joseph Woll have all been loaned to the Toronto Marlies. The Maple Leafs don’t play until Wednesday and are now home until Sunday.
Woll’s inclusion could indicate that Matt Murray will return to the team this week after skating with the club in recent days. The injured netminder hasn’t played since January 17, leaving Ilya Samsonov to carry the load almost every night. Woll got his first game action of the season on Saturday in the second half of a back-to-back, but the Maple Leafs left him out to dry, allowing 40 shots from the Columbus Blue Jackets, which resulted in four goals.
Steeves, 23, also landed his first NHL action of the season, playing in both games against Columubs and registering three shots on net. The young forward is still looking for his first NHL goal but will be hard-pressed to earn regular minutes in the Maple Leafs lineup this season.
That’s partly because of the strong rookie season for Holmberg, who has 13 points in 35 games as the team’s fourth-line center. The emergence of Holmberg has been a nice bonus for a Maple Leafs team that hasn’t added a homegrown regular to the forward group for a few years now, instead securing depth through free agency.
With the team off for two days, this is essentially a cost-saving move, as all three are on two-way contracts. Still, because of the long-term injured reserve relief they are using, there’s no cap accumulation by sending them down. The Marlies play tonight, and you may see at least Holmberg back up for Wednesday’s game.
Matt Murray Placed On Injured Reserve
The Toronto Maple Leafs are back from the All-Star break and will be back in action with a home-and-home against the Columbus Blue Jackets starting tomorrow night. It doesn’t look like they’ll have one of their regular goaltenders for the back-to-back situation, though, as Matt Murray landed on injured reserve today.
Toronto has recalled Pontus Holmberg, Alex Steeves, and goaltender Joseph Woll from the AHL.
It’s been the same story for Murray this season. Pretty good when healthy – not healthy often enough. This is his second stint on injured reserve, after missing a month with a groin injury earlier on. He’s played in 19 games so far, posting a .911 save percentage, but hasn’t appeared since January 17. The lion’s share of the goaltending duties will again fall on Ilya Samsonov, who has done well so far carrying the load but is still relatively inexperienced.
Samsonov, 25, set a career-high with 39 starts last season and finished with his worst performance since debuting in 2019. While his .913 save percentage so far for the Maple Leafs is encouraging, pushing him every night is a recipe for disaster. Toronto needs two goaltenders that they can rely on, and so far, that hasn’t been Murray.
Perhaps it will be Woll, who is having a fantastic bounce-back after recovering from injury. Through 14 games for the Toronto Marlies, he is 13-1 with a .930 save percentage. The 24-year-old was a highly touted prospect at one point, but has struggled to stay healthy through the early part of his career and has just four appearances in the NHL so far.
There is no clear timeline for Murray’s return, but he was on the ice today at practice. Since he has been out so long, his IR stay can be backdated to allow his activation whenever deemed healthy enough to go.
Maple Leafs Place Wayne Simmonds And Jason Spezza In COVID Protocol
The Maple Leafs will be without two more veterans for their game in Vancouver tonight as the team announced (Twitter link) that winger Wayne Simmonds and center Jason Spezza have been placed in COVID protocol. They join center John Tavares and forward Alexander Kerfoot who were also placed there on Friday.
Simmonds has had a limited role this season but has been a bit more productive, notching four goals and six assists in 29 games despite averaging over 10 minutes a game. Meanwhile, Spezza has put up similar numbers, collecting seven goals and four helpers in 26 contests. He was set to make his return after the final two games of his suspension were overturned yesterday but now that will be on hold. If subsequent testing also results in positive tests, the veterans will be out for at least 10 days.
Taking their place on the roster are forward Alex Steeves and defenseman Carl Dahlstrom who were both recalled from AHL Toronto. Steeves got into three games with the Maple Leafs earlier this month after a strong start with the Marlies that has him averaging a point per game while Dahlstrom had been up with them briefly earlier this week before being sent back down on Tuesday. With Mitch Marner currently on LTIR, Toronto has the short-term cap space to carry a full roster, a luxury that won’t be available to them when everyone is healthy.