John Tavares left Thursday night's game after a collision with Josh Norris, and the Maple Leafs may have lost more than a 5-4 overtime decision to Buffalo.
The veteran ended up down on the ice at Scotiabank Arena and had to leave the game. Nobody wearing blue wanted to watch that clip twice.
Dr. Harjas Grewal looked at the footage and flagged what appeared to be inward stress on the right knee, and maybe the ankle too.
His read is that the mechanism most often produces MCL injuries or high ankle sprains. He put those timelines at four to six weeks, depending on severity.
He called a torn ACL possible but less likely. Until the Leafs say more, that's a doctor working off a bad camera angle, not a diagnosis.
The timing stinks. The Leafs sit at 3-3-2 after dropping a second straight, and their goal differential is stuck at even.
Tavares wasn't a passenger in this start, either. He has seven points through seven games, and four of them came on the power play.
Jim Hiller faces a lineup puzzle before Saturday's Islanders game
That production ranks fourth on the team behind Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Kirill Marchenko. He also sits at a -5 rating, so the start wasn't flawless.
Hiller doesn't get much breathing room. The Islanders visit Saturday, San Jose comes in Monday, and then it's a Tuesday trip to Columbus for the back end of a back-to-back.
Think of a restaurant losing its sous-chef. Nobody books a table because of him, but dinner service falls apart the minute he's gone.
Matthews is carrying the load right now, with 12 points over his last five games. He can't also soak up every minute and power-play touch the veteran leaves behind.
So who absorbs those minutes?
Easton Cowan already owns two game-winning goals, more than anybody else on the roster. He's 21 and has earned a longer look.
Gavin McKenna, all of 18, has five points over his last five games. Throwing him into heavier matchups in October to cover for this injury is a bad idea.
The blue line can't help much. Chris Tanev is on injured reserve with an upper-body injury and isn't expected back until at least Oct. 22.
Goaltending won't paper over it, either. Anthony Stolarz is working with a .875 save percentage through five appearances.
On the other side, Norris has had a rough start of his own, going minus-4 over his last five games. The Sabres head to Montreal on Saturday.
The Leafs still have three more dates with Buffalo on the schedule. Whether Tavares is healthy for any of them depends on what Toronto learns over the next few days.
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Should the Maple Leafs keep Gavin McKenna out of John Tavares' minutes while he's out?
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Jim Hiller explains Gavin McKenna's benching in Leafs' OT loss: he sat too long to go back out
