Nine games added to February schedule
That big February gap in the schedule — originally created for NHL participation at the Winter Olympics — is getting filled in.
And the Maple Leafs who had looked forward to some vacation time, or extended family time, will be playing hockey instead.
Those nine games that were postponed due to the pandemic and crowd restrictions have been rescheduled with no extension to the season necessary.
For the Leafs, the changes start Jan. 31 at home to New Jersey, a game that got postponed from just this week, part of a league-wide rescheduling of more than 100 games released Wednesday.
“I’m glad they rescheduled to give us a chance to hopefully have fans in the building at home,” said defenceman T.J. Brodie. “It’s exciting to get a whole season and somewhat feel back to normal.”
As things stand, Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment may not yet host any fans at Scotiabank Arena, though they are hopeful restrictions will soon be lifted. The province is undergoing a “staged and phased” approach to reopening.
The Leafs will get some time off for the all-star break with games resuming Feb. 7 against Carolina.
Then the Leafs will head to the Western road trip through Calgary (Feb. 10), Vancouver (Feb. 12) and Seattle (Feb. 14).
Then it’s home to Pittsburgh on Feb. 17 and St. Louis on Feb. 19, followed by another three-game road trip to Montreal (Feb. 21), Columbus (Feb. 22) and Detroit (Feb. 26).
That game that was to have been in Toronto but the Leafs and the Wings traded home dates, with the Wings now coming to Toronto on April 26.
For the players, they now have only a couple of days off for the all-star break, but had been looking at more than two weeks. So what might have been?
“We had planned originally — like, last summer — to do a full family vacation,” said Brodie. “Obviously nothing was concrete. We know that there is a lot of variables and things that could happen, so I didn’t really get too excited for it. And now seeing what happened, so happy at I didn’t (get too excited).”
Coach Sheldon Keefe said he is pretty much a last-minute planner. Still, to have so much time off midseason would have been a treat.
“I had no plans specifically other than probably we would have ended up somewhere warm for some portion of time,” said Keefe. But with two young kids in school and in hockey, all those kind of things, we weren’t making too many plans.
“I think when you’re when you’re a coach, you’ve got to remain flexible and you can’t settle on any sort of plans because you’re always reacting to the team and the circumstances around your group. So I had nothing definitive, other than spending quality time with family.”
Mitch Marner, on the other hand, had hoped he’d be on Canada’s Olympic team.
“I wasn’t planning on a vacation,” said Marner. “I was hoping to maybe try and crack that roster, get a chance at it. So I didn’t want to bad mojo myself and start planning vacations or anything like that. The goal was to try to be in China and be a part of that team. But, obviously, stuff changes.”
‘‘ I had no plans specifically other than probably we would have ended up somewhere warm for some portion of time.
LEAF COACH SHELDON KEEFE