Maple Leafs Place Miles Wood On IR

The injury list has been pretty long already this season for the Maple Leafs, who find themselves down several regulars in the early going.  Now, one of the players called up to cover for those injuries is injured himself without even playing one game.  Per the NHL’s media site, winger Miles Wood has been placed on injured reserve.

The 31-year-old cleared waivers back in training camp and was assigned to the minors but found himself on the move soon after as he was moved to Toronto as part of the Kirill Marchenko trade.  His inclusion appeared to be more for salary cap purposes as he carries a $2.5MM cap charge for the next three years, a hefty price tag for someone to play in the AHL.  He earned that money over a decade’s worth of games, where he has 99 goals and 97 assists in 567 appearances.

Wood remained on assignment to the Marlies early in the season and hadn’t seen game action prior to his recall last week.  He got into some practices and evidently sustained some sort of injury, although the nature is undisclosed and there’s no word on a timeline for his return.

Toronto has a little under $5MM remaining in LTIR room, per PuckPedia.  That pool will be reduced by $3.25MM in the coming days with Dakota Joshua’s pending return but even so, they can easily afford to carry Wood on IR for the time being.  If Wood is eventually deemed to miss at least 10 games and 24 days, he’ll be eligible to be transferred to LTIR himself. The Maple Leafs now have one open spot on their active roster, though that could be given to Joshua over the next few days.