The Toronto Maple Leafs squandered a late lead on Thursday night, losing 3-2 to the San Jose Sharks in overtime on home ice — and they lost one of their most important defensemen in the process.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who has managed 20 points in 30 games in 2025-26, exited the game after suffering a lower-body injury. The veteran had to be helped off the ice and did not return.
Although head coach Craig Berube said after the game that OEL would need further evaluation, TSN hockey insider Darren Dreger provided a positive update on the 34-year-old on Friday.
“The news appears to be better than expected for OEL. See how he feels in the morning but, the veteran D-man may test his injury tomorrow and if he feels he can play, he will,” Dreger reported. “Surprising considering the pain he was in when he left last night's game.”
Ekman-Larsson got tangled up with Sharks forward Adam Gaudette, and Gaudette seemed to land on his leg awkwardly. If the Swede is able to return to the lineup as early as Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers, it would produce a massive sigh of relief from Leafs faithful.
Toronto is already missing Chris Tanev and Brandon Carlo; the former is getting a second opinion on his injury, while the latter had foot surgery on December 3 and is out indefinitely.
The Leafs' blue line is already thin, and Ekman-Larsson and Morgan Rielly are the two key pieces keeping it together.
Leafs can't be too pleased with loss to Sharks
Ekman-Larsson's update is a huge one for the Leafs, who have won four of their last six games but remain in fifth place in the Atlantic Division at 14-11-5.
Thursday's loss was disappointing considering Toronto led 2-0 in the contest and 2-1 late in regulation. San Jose defenseman John Klingberg knotted the score at 2-2 with less than two minutes left, before Alex Wennberg called game in overtime.
“The third period, we didn’t come out and dictate how to play the game,” Berube said, per NHL.com's Dave McCarthy. “We turned pucks over, we were passive, we didn’t finish them off in my opinion.”
Toronto was outshot 11-5 in the third.
“It could have gone either way honestly,” said captain Auston Matthews, who scored Toronto's second goal. “I thought we played a pretty solid game. They tie the game late, it’s always a battle the last couple of minutes especially 5-on-6 and they were able to find a way through to tie it. It could have gone either way. It's tough getting on the wrong side of it but I thought there was a lot of good things we did today.”
The Leafs will try to quickly forget about the tough ending, and will turn their attention to the Oilers, who just traded Stuart Skinner to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Tristan Jarry.
It'll be interesting to see if Ekman-Larsson will be able to suit up for the contest, which gets underway from Scotiabank Arena just past 7:00 p.m. ET on Saturday night.
