The Leafs had their lunch fed to them by the lowly Ottawa Senators on Friday in what was a disappointing 6-2 loss on home ice.

Michael Bunting burst onto the scene in Toronto last season with 23 goals and 60 points in his rookie campaign.

Following their win over the Columbus Blue Jackets, Vancouver Canucks GM Patrik Allvin announced the team was shutting down former Leaf Ilya Mikheyev for the season.

The Leafs played a solid first period last night against the Ottawa Senators, however that's about as far as it went.

Matt Murray was slated to start last night against the Senators but, after warm-ups, it was Ilya Samsonov who made his fifth straight start.

The Leafs are back in action for a rare Friday night game against the Ottawa Senators in the always entertaining Battle of Ontario.

Ahead of their matchup against the Ottawa Senators tonight, the Toronto Maple Leafs took to a mandatory practice this morning.

Usually when a team loses their best player to an injury - whether that be a game, a week, a month - they tend to struggle.

Today, we heard the unfortunate news that Auston Matthews will be out for a minimum of three weeks with a knee sprain.

The Leafs have been without Victor Mete since he suffered what the team is calling a "lower-body injury" on December 6th.

During Wednesday's thrilling 3-2 OT victory over the New York Rangers, Leafs resident sniper Auston Matthews suffered an unfortunate lower-body injury, which will sideline him for several weeks.

After the shocking news that Auston Matthews would be out for a minimum of three weeks due to a knee sprain, which he suffered against the Rangers Wednesday, Sheldon Keefe was forced to shuffle his forward lines on Friday.

The Leafs have had the luxury of being able to roll two goaltenders pretty much all year.

When the Leafs took to the ice for Morning Skate today, there was a very noticeable absence.

When the Leafs announced that they were using a 5th round draft pick to select overage Russian forward Nikita Grebyonkin with the 135th selection in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, I don't think anyone was under the impression that the Leafs had just drafted a potential star.

In the second period of Wednesday's game against the Rangers, Ilya Samsonov gave up one of the more unique goals we've seen in some time to Rangers forward Filip Chytil.

In the age of the internet, it has become commonplace for people to speak their mind without any sort of a filter.

NHL Insider Chris Johnston added some fuel to the fire in regards to the approach that the Toronto Maple Leafs might take heading into the trade deadline.

Most sports don't have an undisputed GOAT like hockey and the NHL.

According to NHL insider, Elliotte Friedman, Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas, has been hard at work the last few weeks calling every other GM around the league that has an available forward and/or defenseman ahead of the trade deadline.

As always, there is lots of speculation surrounding the Leafs and the trade deadline, particularly pertaining to what they should do, what fans want them to do and what they might actually do.

With the NHL trade deadline coming up in 5 weeks, there has been a lot of speculation over just how active the Vancouver Canucks will be in the sellers' market - specifically because of comments made by both the team's GM and President of Hockey Ops.

For Ilya Samsonov, this year has been a bit of a rollercoaster.

We hear an awful lot about how much Bunting moves his mouth during a game, and to a point, we can see it on camera, but we can never hear what he's saying and reading lips is not always the easiest thing to do.

In the final year of a 7-year deal he signed in 2015, Ryan O'Reilly has been at the forefront of trade rumours and speculation for the past couple of months.

With a lot of the focus being on mental health yesterday, Leafs winger Mitch Marner took it upon himself to address the issue with the media following his team's 3-2 OT win over the Rangers on Wednesday.

Following a sensational performance against the New York Islanders on Monday, during which he posted 2 goals and 2 assists for a total of 4 points in one single period, William Nylander was awarded the Leafs championship belt, which is passed from player to player after each game to honour the team's MVP on any given night.

With the talent that the Leafs possess among their ''Core 4'', it seems like we're being treated to highlight reel plays on almost a nightly basis - but hey, that's what you'd come to expect when you're paying a handful of players half of your total cap space.

With just over 4 minutes to go in last night's game, Timothy Liljegren pounced on a rebound in the slot and beat Igor Shesterkin high to tie the game at 2.

The officials are at it again, ladies and gents.

When it comes to the cream of the crop that will be made available ahead of the trade deadline you're always going to hear contending teams like the Boston Bruins are interested, the Edmonton Oilers, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and so forth.

An NHLer's number is significant.

Today's news broke that Bally Sports, a regional sports network, is preparing for bankruptcy and will affect twelve NHL networks.

The list of great NHL players the Leafs *almost* had seems to grow with each passing year.

In what has become a customary and almost mandatory report heading into the playoffs, the Leafs' goaltending is always brought into question and is always treated as lesser than their opponent.

Make no mistake about it, Auston Matthews is the most popular Leaf in the last two decades - perhaps even of all time.