Toronto Maple Leafs fans are holding their collective breaths after newly acquired goaltender Frederik Andersen suffered an upper-body injury during an Olympic qualifying game between Denmark and Slovenia.
The injury occurred when Andersen was ran into by his fellow teammate and Columbus Blue Jackets prospect, Oliver Bjorkstrand. As a result, Andersen was forced to exit the game which caused the Maple Leafs fans to go into panic mode.
Frederik Andersen Injured in Olympic Qualifying
Once that happened, hockey twitter was filled with Maple Leafs fans already worrying about their goaltender. Reports are coming out that Andersen is on his way back to Toronto so the team can evaluate the severeness of his injury.
https://twitter.com/aj_ranger/status/771726196904235008
https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/771792912577273857
Upcoming World Cup
The most important question that fans want to know. Should Lou Lamoriello let Andersen play in the World Cup of Hockey?
It’s more than likely that Lamoriello will have him skip the World Cup of Hockey. Which is the logical thing to do since management made a five-year commitment to Andersen. Management did not let William Nylander finish the World Juniors last season when he suffered a concussion. So it will be interesting to see how they deal with this situation.
Having Andersen play for Team Europe is not as important as having him healthy for when the season starts. Not to mention other players such as Duncan Keith and Jeff Carter are skipping the tournament due to injuries. Teams are focusing on their players getting healthy for the season instead having them risk further injury and the Maple Leafs should do the same.
It’s been awhile since this team has had a reliable goaltender, so having Andersen skip this tournament would let Maple Leaf fans sleep easy at night knowing their number goaltender has skipped the tournament rather than worrying if he will re-injure himself.
This will be the first adversity of the season for the Maple Leafs. If the Maple Leafs want to make some noise this season they will need a healthy Andersen to compete.
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