Maple Leafs' Rielly out with upper-body injury, misses game versus Devils

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Morgan Rielly wasn’t in the Maple Leafs lineup on Tuesday night.

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Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe held out hope in the morning that the club’s top defenceman could play against the New Jersey Devils at Scotiabank Arena.

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Not long after Rielly was a no-show for the pre-game warmup, though, the Leafs announced that the 30-year-old was out because of an upper-body injury. 

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It was not clear when Rielly suffered the injury. He played more than 24 minutes on Sunday night in Carolina against the Hurricanes in a 2-1 Leafs loss. 

You will recall that the Leafs got by nicely without Rielly in February, going 5-0 as Rielly served a five-game suspension for cross-checking Ridly Greig of the Ottawa Senators on Feb. 10.

The Leafs also were without defenceman Joel Edmundson, who played just under 15 minutes in Carolina. His injury had not been disclosed and Keefe indicated that Edmundson won’t play in the Leafs’ three games this week.

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With Rielly and Edmundson out, the Toronto defence pairs were TJ Brodie-Ilya Lyubushkin; Jake McCabe-Timothy Liljegren; and Simon Benoit-Conor Timmins. 

The match on Tuesday marked the first of three between the Leafs and the Devils in 2023-24. The clubs meet two more times in the next couple of weeks.

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