Toronto Maple Leafs rookie prospect Ben Danford suffered an injury during practice on Thursday and there has been an update in regards to his condition.
After suffering an injury from landing awkwardly into the boards, Danford was slow to get up and eventually left practice. This is definitely concerning, not only for Maple Leafs fans, but it also hearkens back to Roni Hirvonen's practice injury, where he suffered a nasty concussion that set him back for some time.
TSN's Mark Masters was on hand and was able to catch the incident and posted it to his X account:
While there initially wasn't anything more beyond Danford being removed for precautionary reasons, we have an update on the rookie's condition thanks to John Gruden, the Maple Leafs prospects head coach:
"He's being evaluated right now. Hopefully he'll be OK," Maple Leafs prospects head coach John Gruden said of Danford via TSN's Mark Masters.
Gruden is tasked with not only being the head coach of the Toronto Marlies, but also heading the prospects and making sure they are showcased to the best of their ability. It puts his status for the Prospect Showcase versus Montreal in doubt, and personally I think Toronto should tread lightly with their rookie and make sure he's completely healthy and ready to go.
No need to rush him into anything when the team knows how good he is.
It's an unfortunate incident and we can only hope this is just a little bit of a shake-up and nothing too serious comes out of it; Toronto cannot afford to lose another young prospect for any length of time.
