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Max Domi Fined By Department Of Player Safety

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The NHL’s Department of Player Safety announced that Toronto Maple Leafs forward Max Domi has been fined $5,000 for his elbow to Philadelphia Flyers forward Garnet Hathaway. The amount is the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The incident occurred at the 5:13 mark of the third period in the Maple Leafs’ 3-2 overtime win over the Flyers on Sunday. The 29-year-old was handed a minor penalty for elbowing on the play, and it capped off an eventful night for Hathaway.

The Flyers forward had a run-in with Toronto netminder Dennis Hildeby in the first period that led to a fight with Maple Leafs defenseman Jake McCabe. In the fight, McCabe was left stunned and didn’t return to the game. McCabe was unable to get up under his own power, leading to members of the Toronto staff and several teammates offering assistance.

Later in the game, Domi took two runs at Hathaway’s head with his elbow which ultimately led to the minor penalty and the fine. The money collected from Domi will go to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

This is not Domi’s first run-in with the DOPS, Domi was fined twice before, with his first occurrence coming back in November 2021 while he was with the Columbus Blue Jackets. The former first-round pick was fined $5,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct. The other fine occurred in the 2023 Western Conference Finals when Domi slashed Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone.

Maple Leafs Place Jake McCabe On IR, Recall Marshall Rifai

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Jake McCabe’s fight with Philadelphia Flyers’ Garnet Hathaway from Sunday night will have some lasting effects. McCabe won’t be in the lineup for the rematch tomorrow night as the Toronto Maple Leafs announced they’ve placed him on injured reserve and recalled defenseman Marshall Rifai in his stead.

The fight between McCabe and Hathaway ended with a scary sequence. As the pair were falling to the ice as the fight ended, Hathaway landed on McCabe’s head causing the injury. Toronto hasn’t offered an official diagnosis for McCabe’s injury but he did not return to game action.

It’ll be a sizeable loss for the Maple Leafs should McCabe miss significant time. He’s been a more than effective blue liner for Toronto since the organization acquired him from the Chicago Blackhawks during the 2022-23 NHL season.

He has consistently averaged over 20 minutes per game in Toronto and was one of the team’s most physically imposing defensemen before they signed Chris Tanev this past summer. McCabe arguably had the best season of his career last year scoring eight goals and 28 points in 73 games while finishing second on the team with 219 hits.

The transaction is the second call-up this week for Rifai. He was originally recalled on New Year’s Eve to take the roster spot of the then-injured Auston Matthews and will now take the place of McCabe on the active roster.

He’ll likely become the team’s seventh defenseman giving the recently-extended Philippe Myers more time in the lineup. Despite the two call-ups, Rifai has only played for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies this year, recording two goals and four points in 26 contests.

Al MacNeil Passes Away At Age 89

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A legendary member of the Calgary Flames organization, Al MacNeil, has passed away at the age of 89 as announced by the Flames.

Before starting his coaching and executive career in the National Hockey League, MacNeil spent 11 years as a player. He suited up for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, and Pittsburgh Penguins from 1955 to 1968 recording 17 goals and 92 points in 524 games with another four assists in 37 postseason contests.

After a brief hiatus in the CHL and AHL, MacNeil was named assistant coach for the Canadiens ahead of the 1970-71 season. After starting the season with an 11-8-4 record through 23 games, then-head coach Claude Ruel resigned leaving the keys to MacNeil for the remainder of the season.

Montreal rebounded immensely under MacNeil’s stewardship, finishing the regular season on a 31-15-9 tear with a +58 goal differential. After knocking off the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs, the Canadiens defeated the Minnesota North Stars and Chicago Blackhawks to win the organization’s 15th Stanley Cup in franchise history.

Despite coaching the team to a Stanley Cup championship, Montreal hired fifth-year head coach Scotty Bowman after leading the St. Louis Blues to three out of the last four Stanley Cup Finals. The Canadiens had no intentions of MacNeil leaving the organization, naming him head coach of the AHL’s Nova Scotia Voyageurs. He enjoyed success with the Voyageurs, winning three Calder Cup championships in six seasons behind the bench.

After finishing as Director of Player Personnel for the Canadiens in the 1978-79 season, MacNeil became the head coach of the NHL’s Atlanta Flames for the 1979-80 season. He would spend the next two decades with the Flames organization.

MacNeil became the last head coach for the Atlanta Flames while being the first head coach for the Calgary Flames. He finished with a record of 105-93-44 in 240 games but failed to coach the Flames beyond the Conference Finals.

He was promoted to Calgary’s front office after the 1981-82 campaign and became the team’s assistant general manager in 1985. Despite a brief 11-game return as the Flames’ head coach in 2002-03, MacNeil held the role of the assistant general manager until his retirement after the 2005-06 season. MacNeil won the fourth Stanley Cup ring of his career when Calgary dispatched his former employer, the Canadiens, in the 1989 Stanley Cup Final.

Although many will think of franchise icons such as Jarome Iginla, Theo Fleury, Al MacInnis, or Lanny McDonald when pondering the Flames’ success since moving to Alberta, MacNeil remains one of the most historical figures in franchise history. PHR extends our condolences to Al’s friends, family, and the organizations he’s been a part of for the last 70 years.

McCabe Exits With Upper-Body Injury

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  • The Maple Leafs announced (Twitter link) that defenseman Jake McCabe suffered an upper-body injury in tonight’s game against Philadelphia and won’t return. The injury occurred in a fight late in the opening period.  McCabe has been an important part of Toronto’s back end, logging over 21 minutes a night while chipping in with 11 points, 68 blocks, and 75 hits in his first 35 games this season.

Toronto Maple Leafs Activate Auston Matthews

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4:15 p.m: According to a team announcement, the Maple Leafs have officially activated from injured reserve and will have him in the forward grouping this evening.

10:58 a.m: The Maple Leafs will welcome back a key piece of their forward tonight.  Center Auston Matthews told reporters including NHL.com’s Dave McCarthy that he will be in the lineup against Boston, meaning Toronto will be activating him off injured reserve.

The 27-year-old has missed the last six games after reaggravating the upper-body injury forced him to miss nine games back in November.  At that time, he went to Germany to be reassessed and has since acknowledged that the injury is something that may linger for the rest of the season.

He’s expected to reclaim his spot on the top line alongside wingers Matthew Knies and Mitch Marner and intends to play both games over the weekend over being eased back in.

In between his stints on IR, the captain has been relatively productive though not to the level he’s accustomed to.  Matthews has 11 goals and 12 assists in 24 games so far this season, good for fourth on the team in scoring despite being out for 15 games already.  However, it’s a far cry from the type of per-game output that saw him record at least 60 goals and 106 points in two of the last three seasons although the Maple Leafs aren’t as much of a high-scoring team under new head coach Craig Berube as they’d been in past years with Sheldon Keefe behind the bench.

Toronto has an open spot on its roster following yesterday’s reassignment of defenseman Marshall Rifai to the Marlies so they won’t need to make any moves to bring Matthews back onto the open roster.

Maple Leafs Reclaim Dakota Mermis Off Waivers From Utah

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Jan. 3: The Maple Leafs reclaimed Mermis off waivers from Utah on Friday, PuckPedia reports. The team later announced that he’s been reassigned to the AHL, indicating they were the only team to submit a claim.

Jan. 2: The Utah Hockey Club placed defenseman Dakota Mermis on waivers on Thursday with intent to assign him to AHL Tucson, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports.

The placement could spell the end of Mermis’ brief tenure in the Beehive State. The club claimed him off waivers from the Maple Leafs on Dec. 12 when Toronto was attempting to sneak him to their AHL affiliate on a permanent assignment after a weeks-long conditioning stint.

Mermis, 30, ended up playing just one game for Utah, logging a -2 rating in 10:47 of ice time against the Ducks on Dec. 22. He was a healthy scratch on eight other occasions before landing on the waiver wire today.

When they claimed Mermis, Utah needed some veteran help to offset injuries to Robert Bortuzzo and Maveric Lamoureux on the back end, in addition to previous IR placements for Sean Durzi and John Marino. With Bortuzzo set to return tonight against the Flames after missing nearly a month with a lower-body injury, though, Mermis’ services as a healthy extra were no longer needed.

Bortuzzo was on IR, so Utah needs to open up a roster spot for his return. Mermis can’t clear the roster until tomorrow, so they’ll likely place netminder Connor Ingram, who’s been out since Nov. 18 with an upper-body injury, on IR retroactively to accommodate Bortuzzo’s activation.

Mermis inked a one-year, one-way deal with the Leafs in free agency but never suited up for them thanks to a jaw injury he sustained in training camp. If Toronto wants him back and is the only team to submit a claim, they may send him directly to the AHL without placing him on waivers again.

Now in his eighth NHL season, Mermis has accumulated 12 points and a +3 rating in 75 career games. A career-high 47 of those appearances came last season with the Wild, just the second time in his career he logged double-digit games and mostly avoided AHL assignments.

Maple Leafs Place Auston Matthews On IR

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Jan. 3: Rifai is back to the minors today, the team announced. Ekman-Larsson is fully recovered from his illness, so Rifai’s services as a healthy extra are no longer needed. There’s no corresponding move, so the Leafs free up a roster spot.

Dec. 31: The Toronto Maple Leafs needed available depth before their matchup against the New York Islanders this afternoon requiring a formal roster move. The team announced they’ve placed Auston Matthews on injured reserve (retroactive to Dec. 20th) and recalled defenseman Marshall Rifai from their AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies.

Hindering any new concerns regarding Matthews’ injury, the Maple Leafs also announced defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson and forward Pontus Holmberg won’t play today because of the flu. Matthews is eligible to return from the injured reserve at any point but two additional players sidelined necessitated a formal roster move.

There’s no expectation Matthews has suffered a setback in his road back from an upper-body injury. He’s missed five straight games after missing nine earlier in the year but has recently returned to skating.

Still, there should be some concern about Matthews’ constant slate of injuries this season. He’s still been his normal self when healthy scoring 11 goals and 23 points in 24 games this year but his availability is important first and foremost. Thankfully for Toronto, they performed well without their captain this season as they’re one win away from tying the Florida Panthers for the lead in the Atlantic Division.

Although he didn’t suit up in his first go-around, the roster move is the second time Rifai has enjoyed an NHL call-up this month. He’ll likely know by warm-ups if he’ll be in the lineup tonight but Toronto still has six healthy defensemen without Ekman-Larsson.

The Harvard University alumnus has been a serviceable defenseman for the Marlies for the past three years and made his NHL debut with the Maple Leafs last year. He’s registered eight goals and 39 points in 150 career games for AHL Toronto.

Maple Leafs Sign Philippe Myers To Two-Year Extension

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The Maple Leafs signed defenseman Philippe Myers to a two-year, $1.7MM extension on Friday, per a team release. The deal carries an $850K cap hit for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 campaigns while keeping him off next summer’s unrestricted free agent market. It’s paid entirely in base salary each season with no signing bonuses, per PuckPedia.

Myers, 27, has skated in a semi-regular role for Toronto over the last month and a half. After serving as a scratch in all but one of the Leafs’ first 23 games, he’s played in 10 out of 16 contests since the beginning of December, including a five-game run at the beginning of last month and suiting up in both of their wins against the Islanders over the past few days.

It’s the most extended leash the 6’5″ righty has seen at the NHL level in over two years. He played in 11 games with the Lightning over the first two months of the 2022-23 campaign before they waived him and assigned him to the AHL for the remainder of the season, and his five games with Tampa in the 2023-24 campaign came over multiple short-term call-ups.

Myers has skated almost exclusively alongside Morgan Rielly in his 11 appearances this season, posting two assists and a +1 rating while averaging 17:08 per game. The duo has worked quite well together, controlling 59% of expected goals – tops among Leafs pairings with at least 50 minutes together, per MoneyPuck.

Early on, Myers has shown he can be the fringe top-four option he once was in the early days of his career with the Flyers, at least when used with a more offensively-inclined partner. Toronto’s front office evidently agrees, opting to keep him around as an affordable depth option for the next two seasons.

Weighing in at 219 lbs, Myers has been one of the Leafs’ most physical options on the blue line as well. His 9.23 hits per 60 minutes rank second among Toronto defenders, just behind Simon Benoit’s 9.54.

At the very least, Myers has seemed to establish a floor as a reliable extra defender and will look to stick around as a roster fixture after spending parts of the last four seasons in the minors. A multi-year, one-way commitment is a big step toward solidifying that.

It’s also a good return on investment for Toronto, who inked him to a one-year, one-way deal worth $775K over the summer despite him spending all but a handful of games last season in the AHL. He has logged three games for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies this season, posting a +2 rating, but they came on a conditioning stint in November, not a full-on demotion.

Myers becomes the seventh defenseman under contract on a one-way deal next season for Toronto, joining Rielly, Benoit, Chris Tanev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jake McCabe, and Marshall Rifai. He’ll be a UFA upon expiry in 2027.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

An Unlikely Option For The Maple Leafs

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Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet wrote a column for the Toronto Star wondering if the Toronto Maple Leafs might place captain Auston Matthews on long-term injured reserve later this season if his injury concerns continue. The 27-year-old hasn’t played since December 20th and has dealt with a nagging upper-body injury since the start of the season. Currently, he has no return date set, which adds to the speculation surrounding his health.

If Toronto were to place Matthews on LTIR, it would open up $13.25MM in cap space, and Kypreos wonders if Toronto might use that room under the salary cap to chase another top center. Toronto would only be able to do so if Matthews missed the remainder of the regular season, but it would not be unprecedented as the Tampa Bay Lightning had a similar situation in 2021 with star forward Nikita Kucherov when he didn’t play a single game during a shortened regular season and returned for the playoffs.

A move like that for Toronto would give them a huge boost for the playoffs and perhaps take some pressure off Matthews when he returns. It could also allow Toronto an opportunity to address their top defensive pairing, as they haven’t been able to give Morgan Reilly a steady defensive partner this season. The Maple Leafs started the year with Chris Tanev on the top pairing, but he has since moved to the second pairing and formed a very formidable unit with Jake McCabe.

While a move like that would give Toronto a boost, it would be a tough sell for Matthews who is set to lead Team USA into the 4 Nations Face-Off next month. His participation in the tournament is contingent on his health, but it will be a huge concern for the Maple Leafs if he returns before the tournament and reaggravates the injury once again.

Things are never boring when it comes to the Maple Leafs and the uncertainty around Matthews, as well as a team that is desperate for some semblance of playoff success should make for an interesting few months in Toronto.

Maple Leafs Notes: Matthews, Ekman-Larsson, Hakanpaa

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Toronto Maple Leafs superstar Auston Matthews has not been ruled out of a return to the lineup this weekend (as per Dave McCarthy of NHL.com). Matthews practiced again today, the second time he has done so since he reaggravated an upper-body injury that kept him out of the lineup for nine games in November.

The 27-year-old has been dealing with the injury since training camp that flared up again in a game against Buffalo on December 20th and will miss a sixth straight game tomorrow night. The Maple Leafs would like Matthews to get one more practice in before he plays again, but Toronto will not practice on Friday. The Maple Leafs play this weekend against Boston on Saturday and Philadelphia on Sunday, so it does remain an outside possibility that Matthew rejoins the team for one of those games.

In other Toronto Maple Leafs notes:

  • Maple Leafs defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson is expected to return to Toronto’s lineup tomorrow night (as per Joshua Kloke of The Athletic). Ekman-Larsson has been dealing with an illness but practiced today with the team, skating on the third pairing alongside Simon Benoit. He missed last night’s game against the Islanders but has dressed in 37 games this season, posting a goal and 12 assists. If the 33-year-old is good to go for tomorrow, it seems likely that Conor Timmins will come out of the lineup.
  • The Toronto Maple Leafs have moved defenseman Jani Hakanpaa to the LTIR which means the team will gain $1.47MM in cap space (as per PuckPedia). The 32-year-old has dressed in just two NHL games this season, registering a single hit along with four blocked shots. Hakanpaa has been skating, but last night’s game was the 19th game in a row that he missed. The move could be short-lived given that he did skate before practice today, however, the Maple Leafs are likely to be cautious before any potential return.

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