After Monday’s practice, GM Brad Treliving discussed the injury status of Auston Matthews, Max Pacioretty, Jani Hakanpaa, Connor Dewar, and Calle Jarnkrok, as well as the Timothy Liljegren trade and Jake McCabe’s new contract extension.
Do you have a sense of the significance of the issue that Auston Matthews is dealing with?
Treliving: No change. Day-to-day. We just want to make sure we get ahead of it and hopefully get it behind us once and for all. He will remain day-to-day. I would say he is doubtful for tomorrow, but he skated Saturday and Sunday. We will keep going down that path.
A couple of other roster updates: Max Pacioretty suffered an injury, and we are going to list him as week-to-week. It is a lower-body injury. He’ll be on IR. He is going to miss some time, but hopefully, we can get him back in the not too distant future.
Jani Hakanpaa was out here today. He went down (to the Marlies). Connor Dewar joined us on Saturday. They did their conditioning stints. Hak still has to get final clearance after that, but touch wood; everything seems to be moving in the right direction on that one, too.
With Calle Jarnkrok, it has been slow. He had a setback over the weekend. We are just going to reset here. I think he is going to New York to a specialist today or tomorrow to get looked at it. We will see where it goes from there.
For Max Pacioretty, he was working his way back and was making an impact. This must be tough.
Treliving: It is unfortunate, right? He has been through a lot. I think he has been a really good addition to our group. He has had an impact in all of the games he has played in.
The good news: To be honest with you, leaving the rink on Saturday night, I thought it was going to be longer than the news we got this morning. But we will just have to see how he responds to treatment. It is going to be several weeks.
Is it fair to say that the injuries have given you the little bit of wiggle room needed to manage the roster?
Treliving: We have had injuries, and you are always managing your roster. Despite some people’s thoughts, I think depth is a good thing, but you are going to run through some injuries like this. We are just managing our way through it.
With Dewar getting back into the mix, what is the goal this season for a player in his position?
Treliving: He is just a good player. Number one for him is getting up to speed. He has missed some time now. He went down and played with the Marlies last weekend, but it is not like he had missed (a very long time). He played in the playoffs last year, so it is just kind of getting those reps bumping and grinding.
He is a guy who, as we saw last year, has flexibility. He can play all three forward positions. He can kill penalties. He adds speed. He plays with a little sand in his game. It will be good to get him back once he is ready to go.
Have you considered bringing someone up from the Marlies?
Treliving: Yeah, we will see. We are looking at that.
What was the reason for extending Jake McCabe when you did?
Treliving: Well, good defenseman. We felt it was a good number. They are hard to come by. He is a guy who was eager and excited to be here. We worked on it for a little bit. As with all of these, there is a little arm wrestling back and forth. We landed in a good spot. We are really happy to have him.
How do you feel about how the Timothy Liljegren situation played out by the end?
Treliving: It is two-fold. We were at eight and nine (defensemen), so there was the performance of some of the guys in camp and at the start of the season. Ultimately, it was also about getting him an opportunity. He was sitting out for a while.
It was a tough market. You saw Fabbro on waivers yesterday. Ultimately, he had been sitting out a while, and we had some guys who had put themselves ahead of him. I just felt it was the right time, and we wanted to give Timmy an opportunity.
Do you have any contract thoughts on Mitch Marner?
Treliving: I always have lots of thoughts.
All of the GMs are in town for the meetings tomorrow. How active are the conversations about rosters?
Treliving: The fact that everybody is here makes it more convenient to see guys, but I don’t think it is any different than normal. You are going to have conversations. This is a regularly-scheduled meeting, so we will have an agenda to go through tomorrow. It will be good to catch-up.
I was at a couple of events last night—David Poile’s reception and then [Colin Campbell’s] dinner—so I saw a number of guys over the last few days. We will see them tomorrow, too.
