Pair of absences at practice sparking some concerns in Toronto

After a day off on Monday, the Maple Leafs are back at it on Tuesday, holding a practice ahead of a meeting with the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. Owners of a 6-2-2 record over their last 10 games, the Leafs originally looked to be getting some good news on Tuesday, as Timothy Liljegren and Ilya Samsonov were projected to return to practice today. Unfortunately, things didn't exactly go as planned.

After skating ahead of practice for the first time since suffering a high-ankle sprain on November 2nd, Liljegren was originally expected to join the team for practice, likely skating as an extra. That, however, did not occur.





The obvious hope here is that the team is just being extra cautious. The concern is that perhaps he had suffered some form of a setback. Unfortunately, we don't have all of the information yet, so all we can really do is sit and wait to hear more.

In addition, after sending Martin Jones back to the AHL's Toronto Marlies, the Leafs were expected to welcome Ilya Samsonov back to practice on Tuesday, and while he did suit up for practice, Samsonov didn't last more than a couple of minutes before departing at the very beginning of practice and not returning.

Samsonov had missed time over the last week with an unspecified illness, so it's entirely possible that today was more about getting out there and seeing where he was at and whether or not he was ready to return. If this was the case, upon figuring out he wasn't quite ready, it makes sense that he would have vacated the net and informed the team's staff of how he felt.

If there's any doubt that Samsonov will be able to suit up on Thursday, it's likely that we'll see Jones recalled tomorrow to travel with the team to Ottawa, even if only as a precaution so as to not require the possible use of an Emergency Backup Goalie (EBUG).