Nick Paul Injury Leaves Maple Leafs Guessing Days From Opening Night

The Nick Paul injury arrives at the worst possible week

The Nick Paul injury is officially day-to-day and unofficially a problem. Toronto’s new third-line centre left Wednesday’s split-squad pre-season game against Ottawa during the second period and did not return, did not practise Thursday, and was described by head coach Jim Hiller as uncertain for the season opener against Montreal on Sept. 29. Hiller said Wednesday he did not believe the injury was serious. He also would not commit to Paul being in the lineup.

Those two statements are not contradictory, but the gap between them is where the Maple Leafs are living right now. With four days until puck drop and a 5 p.m. ET Monday deadline to submit a 23-man roster, Toronto has to make binding decisions about its forward group without knowing whether one of its most important summer additions can play.

Paul cost real assets. Toronto acquired him from Tampa Bay on July 1 for goaltending prospect Dennis Hildeby, a 2027 fourth-round pick and a 2028 third-round pick. He is 31, signed for three more seasons at a $3.15 million cap hit, and was brought in specifically to give this team a centre who can play the third line, kill penalties and slide up when the top six gets hurt.

Why the timing is so awkward

Toronto is roughly $2.8 million over the $104 million cap and is using Max Domi’s long-term injured reserve placement plus a set of minor-league assignments to get compliant. That structure only works if the roster is set. An injured player who is genuinely day-to-day cannot be put on LTIR, because LTIR requires an expected absence of at least 10 games and 24 days.

So the Leafs have three options with Paul, and all three cost something. Dress him if he is fit and hope the injury does not aggravate. Hold him out and carry a healthy scratch in his place, which uses a roster spot the cap sheet barely has room for. Or put him on regular injured reserve, which frees a roster spot but requires a minimum seven-day absence — a meaningful commitment for something described as day-to-day.

This is the flexibility problem we flagged in our look at how Toronto gets cap compliant with Domi on LTIR. When every dollar is accounted for, a short-term injury stops being a lineup question and becomes a paperwork question.

Dakota Joshua is back, and that matters more than it looks

The one piece of good news out of Thursday: Dakota Joshua practised with the main group. Joshua has been dealing with a core-muscle issue that kept him out of the back half of the pre-season schedule and turned him into an open question for opening night, a situation we covered when his availability first came into doubt.

A healthy Joshua does not replace Paul — he is a winger, not a centre — but he restores a body to a forward group that has been running short. He is also the kind of player whose presence lets Hiller move Colton Sissons or Easton Cowan around without leaving a hole, which is the entire purpose of carrying interchangeable forwards.

What the lineup looks like without Paul

If Paul cannot go Tuesday, Toronto’s centre depth behind Auston Matthews and John Tavares comes down to Sissons and whoever the club decides to carry as its 13th forward. Sissons signed this summer to be a third-line option; he was not signed to be the only third-line option. Moving him up means the fourth line is built from whichever combination of Zack MacEwen, Brandon Duhaime and Teddy Blueger survives the weekend.

There is no version of that group that scares Montreal. It is serviceable, it can kill penalties, and it will not generate offence. Against a Canadiens team built around Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Ivan Demidov and Lane Hutson, asking a patchwork bottom six to break even for 20 minutes is asking a lot on night one.

The Leafs injury list is already long

Paul joins a group that was not short to begin with. Max Domi failed his physical at the start of camp with complications from off-season surgery and is out indefinitely, with LTIR the plan. William Villeneuve had ACL reconstruction. Cade Webber had an elbow reconstruction. Morgan Rielly opened camp away from the group with a viral condition, though that is not expected to keep him out Tuesday.

None of those are related, which is the point. A team that has already lost a forward for a significant stretch and is managing a defenceman’s return cannot absorb a third and fourth absence gracefully when the cap sheet has no slack in it. The 84-game schedule — two games longer than last season, with no mid-season international break — makes depth a season-long stressor rather than an opening-week one.

What Hiller has actually said

Hiller’s public position has been consistent and deliberately vague: he does not think the injury is serious, and he does not know if Paul plays Tuesday. Coaches in the final week of camp have every incentive to say exactly that, because the alternative is telling an opponent which centre to game-plan against.

Read it as genuine uncertainty rather than gamesmanship, though. Paul did not practise. Players who are going to play four days later usually do something on the ice, even if it is limited. The absence of a skate is the most informative fact available, and it points toward a decision that gets made Sunday or Monday rather than one that has already been made.

Our read: sit him

If there is any doubt on Monday, the Leafs should hold Paul out of the opener and put him on injured reserve, retroactive where the rules allow. The upside of having him for one game against Montreal is small. The downside of a 31-year-old centre aggravating a soft-tissue injury in game one of an 84-game season is that Toronto loses him for a month instead of a week.

Toronto did not trade a goaltending prospect and two picks for opening night. It traded for a player who is supposed to be available in March, and the fastest way to lose that is to rush him in September for a game that counts exactly as much as the 83 that follow. We made the case for Paul’s role in his third-line centre homecoming, and none of that value is realized by pushing him into a lineup he is not ready for.

The counterargument is legitimate: this is a club that missed the playoffs last season and cannot afford to treat any two points as optional. Fine. Then treat the roster as what it is and give the 13th forward the start, rather than dressing a compromised centre and finding out in the second period.

What happens next

Toronto practises through the weekend, submits its 23-man roster by 5 p.m. ET Monday, and hosts Montreal on Tuesday. Paul’s status should firm up by Sunday’s skate — if he is on the ice with the main group, he plays; if he is not, the Leafs open the season with a bottom six they did not plan on.

For the full picture of the remaining lineup calls, see our breakdown of the sixth defenceman and the 13th forward, and our scouting report on the Canadiens. Roster and depth-chart details live on the players page.