Leafs pay tribute to Borje Salming with beautiful shoulder patch

Sadly, yesterday afternoon, legendary Leaf and Hall of Famer Borje Salming passed away after a short battle with ALS. Tributes poured in across social media from former teammates, friends, teams and players that looked up to and respected him greatly.

Today, the Leafs took on the Minnesota Wild in a rare Friday afternoon game. They sported shoulder patches to honour the man known as "The King". The shoulder patch features the old blue Leaf logo, from the prime Salming era, with the top covered by a yellow crown - fitting that they chose blue and yellow, the colours of the Swedish flag.

It's a very classy and touching move by the Leafs and quite impressive that they were able to have the patches made and sewn onto the jerseys for today's game. It goes to show just how important Borje was to the organization that they scrambled to get this done so quickly in honour of #21.




Salming played 16 season with the Leafs from 1973-1989, playing 1,099 games in the Blue & White and was not only an inspiration for Swedish players who had dreams of playing in the NHL, but he was also a fearless competitor who became an easy player to love and root for even for those outside of his native Sweden.