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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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Mitch Marner has been a driving force behind the Maple Leafs’ offence this season.

After 56 games, the rookie winger is leading Toronto in points (48) and assists (33), all the while providing a contagious level of enthusiasm.

So when he went sliding awkwardly into the boards after taking a hit from Boone Jenner on Wednesday in Columbus, the Maple Leafs held their breath that the upper-body injury he suffered wouldn’t keep him out of the lineup long term.

After missing most of that third period, Marner was absent from Friday’s practice, and his status for Saturday’s game against Ottawa is up in the air.

At this point, Marner’s injury isn’t thought to be severe. He tried to come back to Wednesday's game several times before being pulled with the game out of reach, and was spotted after in Toronto’s dressing room looking unencumbered. The final decision on his status for the Maple Leafs’ weekend back-to-back is still to come.

“Obviously if I’m in charge, he’s in. If the doctors are in charge, they’ll decide tomorrow,” Mike Babcock said. “[Nikita Soshnikov] is ready to go and he’s dying to get in. We’ll see tomorrow.”

But just because Marner wasn’t seen in his usual place beside Tyler Bozak Friday doesn’t mean his presence wasn’t still being felt.

“I mean, he’s still here. He’s not gone for good,” Bozak said with an exasperated laugh after practice. “We’ll still see him every day, so I still get the same [excitement] from him. We’ll miss him on the ice, but he’s still the same in the room.”

In Marner’s absence, Connor Brown slotted onto the right side of the Bozak line at practice, while Josh Leivo took his place on the top power-play unit (Marner is tied for second-most power-play points on the team with 15).

It’s not entirely new territory for Brown, who played with Bozak sporadically during his seven-game tenure with the club last season. Two years ago, he skated with Bozak and van Riemsdyk in a pair of exhibition games.

At the start of the season, Babcock said he originally planned to put Brown on that line, unaware that Marner would play at the level he did of the gate. With that second line accounting for a team-high 87 points at even strength, Marner missing even one game stands to have an impact.

“It’s tough obviously when your leading scorer goes down. It’s a tough void to fill,” Bozak said. “I don’t think one guy is going to do it. I think we have to do it as a group.”

Brown has only one point in his last five games, and could use a jump-start offensively. He's also used to being shuffled through Toronto’s lineup – if he replaces Marner on Saturday, he will be the only forward to have started on all four lines at some point this season.

“That [trio] has stuck together a majority of the year, so to be slotted in there, it’s a challenge for me and I’ll try to answer the bell,” Brown said. “I’ll be hard on the puck, win puck battles, get pucks back and continue to make plays.”

Toronto has enjoyed remarkable health this season. Sidelined in December for three games with a lower-body injury, Bozak is the only top-nine forward to have missed more than one game, while Morgan Rielly’s injury (six games lost to a high-ankle sprain) has been the only significant absence on the blueline.

Fighting for their playoff lives in an air-tight Eastern Conference race – Toronto is clinging to the second wild-card spot by one point – the Maple Leafs need wins no matter who is in the lineup.

“We’ve had a little bit of luck [with injuries], and the style of play we like to use [helps]. We’re fast, and we’re not overly physical,” Nazem Kadri said. “But stuff like this is going to happen [and] points are too valuable not to show up in these next types of games. Teams are going to be pushing and we’re one of those teams.”