Adam Brooks called up to the Maple Leafs on Emergency Basis

It’s not clear exactly who he’s coming up to replace, but Leafs PR informed us that Adam Brooks received a call-up to the Toronto Maple Leafs from the Toronto Marlies, on “emergency basis”.

This means that the Leafs have suffered enough injuries up front that they would be left with fewer than 13 healthy forwards on the roster. My assumption is that this includes injuries we already knew about, like Andreas Johnsson.

Trevor Moore has been hurt as well, and was originally expected to return tonight but that has been called off due to taking a bump in practice today, as per Kristen Shilton, which is the reason for Brooks’ call up:

That leaves 12 healthy forwards on the roster, so the Leafs are allowed to call up Brooks to give them a 13th reserve forward.

Brooks was drafted by the Leafs in 2016 as a 19-year old among the elite scorers of the WHL at the time. In his 3 seasons with the Toronto Marlies, he’s slowly worked his way into a top 6 role on that team, but hasn’t yet gotten to a level where he would compete for an NHL job.

The Leafs’ depth chart is pretty thin, but they did sign a number of centers this offseason to shore that up including (no pun intended) Nick Shore who was lost to waivers earlier in the year and Jason Spezza. Two other center newcomers, Tyler Gaudet and Aaron Luchuk, appear to be behind Brooks on the depth chart if this call-up is any indication.

Brooks leads the centers on the Toronto Marlies with 14 points, despite playing just 18 of the team’s 27 games so far this season.

It’s a bit surprising that Nic Petan, who has seen some time with the Leafs this year and has a significant amount of experience playing his natural position of center in the NHL (though his size often finds him on the wing). However, it’s hard not to be excited for young Brooks getting shown some sign of nearing his chance to play for the big club.

Ultimately, this call-up truly is for emergency only, and barring an unexpected pre-game injury to one of the other forwards, he’ll likely stay in the press box. I doubt that will hurt his feelings much, given that he’s also getting a 10x pay increase for being on the NHL roster today.

Earlier today, the indication from the Leafs was that Moore would be able to return to the lineup tonight after missing a month with a significant shoulder injury. However, it appears that during practice yesterday Moore was hit in the head and was put through the Leafs’ internal concussion protocol, as per Kristen Shilton again:

It’s good to know that there shouldn’t be any long term affects, but concussions can be unpredictable so it’s good that Toronto is playing it safe here. They have such a long list of depth forwards capable of playing in the NHL that there’s no reason to unnecessarily risk Moore’s health, even if a healthy Moore would be somewhat of an upgrade on Timashov, who he was originally to replace.