The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced that veteran defenseman Mark Giordano will be out of the lineup week-to-week with a broken finger.
The injury occurred during the Leafs’ 2-1 shootout win over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night. Giordano blocked a shot with his hand in the first period, with the Panthers’ Kevin Stenlund scoring just moments later.
The 40-year-old has five points in 21 games this season. He’s one of the best penalty-killing defensemen in the league, with a 6.54 expected goals against per 60 minutes that ranks sixth among defenders with at least 500 minutes of shorthanded ice time since 2021.
The former Norris Trophy winner is in the last year of his two-year contract in Toronto and holds a team-friendly cap hit of $800k. Giordano spent 15 seasons with the Calgary Flames including eight seasons as captain and a Norris Trophy win in 2019, before he was selected by the Seattle Kraken in their 2021 expansion draft, and then dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs at the 2022 trade deadline later that season.
The hole Giordano left in Tuesday night’s game was noticeable, as Morgan Reilly played 30:30, the third-highest single-game total in his NHL career. The Maple Leafs are already without Timothy Liljegren and John Klingberg on the blueline, and only just got Conor Timmins back, so they’ve had their fair share of injury concerns on defense this season and this just piles on top of it.
The Leafs are currently tied for third in the Atlantic Division with the Detroit Red Wings and Tampa Bay Lightning, all sitting at 25 points and all six points back of the first-place Boston Bruins. As the Maple Leafs prepare for a Thursday night matchup against the Seattle Kraken, Toronto has some tough matchups on the horizon, including hosting the Bruins on Saturday night.
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