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William Nylander was knocked out of Thursday’s exhibition game with an apparent upper-body injury.
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The Maple Leafs, who could ill afford the absence of a 40-goal forward and one of the keys to their offence, lost him in the first period against Montreal on a bizarre play.
At the 12:16 mark, after he’d already been dumped hard in the corner boards on an uncalled penalty and needed time to get back in the play, Nylander was trying to back-check on Christian Dvorak.
As he sped past linemate Nick Robertson, the latter instinctively tried to push him ahead with his stick but the move seemed to knock him off balance into Dvorak, his head contacting the Montreal forward’s knee. Nylander exited to the nearby Leaf dressing room tunnel.
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Nylander has suffered migraine headaches in the past that led to him using a tinted visor, an issue that kept him out of the first three games of the spring playoff series against Boston.
Before the second period began, the Leafs announced Nylander would not return for “precautionary” reasons. In attendance was Leaf career goals and points leader Mats Sundin — a good friend of the Nylander family — in a rare Toronto return.
The loss of Nylander comes as team scoring leader Auston Matthews has not been a regular practice participant the past couple of days with an undetermined upper-body issue.
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