The Toronto Maple Leafs got bad news on Monday, October 26, after losing 5-2 to the Calgary Flames. Forward Kirill Marchenko suffered an injury in the second period after taking a nasty fall following a collision with Yegor Sharangovich and crashing into the boards.
He briefly tried to return to the action but couldn’t continue and had to head to the locker room. He did not return for the remainder of the game.
The Toronto franchise confirmed the injury but described it only as a lower-body injury, with no further details.
On Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff’s “The Leafs Morning Take,” Nick Alberga and former Toronto player Jay Rosehill discussed the situation, with Rosehill offering a hopeful assessment of Marchenko’s condition.
Based on his experience, he said it looked like an MCL injury and that he hopes Marchenko can return within three weeks at most, though he clarified he was only speculating.
Maple Leafs Handed Hopeful Assessment of Marchenko’s Lower-Body Injury
Alberga first said, “Is this organization cursed? It was too good to be true how good things were going. You beat Edmonton, you’ve won four in a row. You’re feeling good. Then your prize pickup from prior to the season, Kirill Marchenko, goes down.”
Rosehill added, “Everyone goes through their lulls with injury problems on the NHL roster throughout the season. But this seems a little heavy.”
“Some pretty important players there are out. And we’ll wait to see what, you know, we’re not, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna hear anything on Kirill Marchenko except three to six or four to, you know, whatever.”
“It looked to me like it was an MCL, if I had to guess. The inside of your knee goes back and then flips out. You put too much strain on that. It didn’t look like it; it blew. I’ve torn my MCL, and you know right away. You can still skate off and all the rest of it. But to me, it looked like he had a big tweak or a partial tear or a strain or sprain. And I’m hoping for something that’s less severe than a tear.”
“Even MCL, usually you don’t have to get surgery on it. It repairs itself. It’s not as bad as an ACL. But, and again, I’m just kind of speculating based on what you saw, it’s one of those fairly obvious injuries where you’re like, yeah, that’s what’s taking the brunt of that maneuver right there. But I’m hoping it’s three weeks and he’s back to normal.“
Maple Leafs Get Hopeful Kirill Marchenko Injury Assessment