The Toronto Maple Leafs are back in action on Saturday evening as they travel to Buffalo to take on the Sabres in enemy territory. Unfortunately, when they take to the ice in Buffalo, they'll be doing so without Mitch Marner once again. Marner has been skating with the team this week, but Sheldon Keefe has already confirmed that he wants his top winger to get in some extra practice time before he re-inserts him into the lineup, which likely means we won't see Marner return until mid-week next week.
Following practice on Friday, Marner met with the media, and while he is certainly excited to be back, you could tell that the one aspect that he didn't miss was the media side of things. When asked about his injury and the lengthy recovery process, Marner threw some shade in the media's direction, stating that he's been watching the games and he's been hearing what has been said about him. However, rather than setting the record straight, Marner was happy to dismiss the entire thing and just keep his focus on now and the future rather than on the past 3 weeks.
Marner injured himself on March 7th against the Boston Bruins after a few too many moves in the offensive zone and an off-balance shot caused him to fall awkwardly while his skate caught an edge. The reports had all indicated that Marner's injury was a high-ankle sprain, but Marner did not confirm the details of his injury with the media. Instead, he was happy to just let them continue to speculate.
Marner is currently sitting at 76 points on the year, and if he is to miss tonight and Monday's games against Buffalo and Florida, that will leave him with just 8 games to play to put up the 24 points he needs to hit the 100-point mark, or 3.00 points per game. Marner is one of the most skilled wingers in the game, but 100 points is probably out of reach after missing several weeks of action.
