Maple Leafs lose Petr Mrazek for several weeks.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to have to find a way to soldier on without the services of veteran goaltender Petr Mrazek, at least for the next little while.

On Sunday the Leafs confirmed what many had already suspected when they revealed that Mrazek has tweaked the groin injury that sidelined him earlier this season, this time resulting in an even longer layoff for the 29 year old goaltender. Mrazek missed 6 games earlier this season as a result of this injury, this time however the Leafs are expecting him to be sidelined for a period of roughly 4 weeks.

As I said many already suspected that Mrazek was dealing with an injury when he was absent from Leafs practice on Saturday morning, and the Leafs decision to call up goaltender Joseph Woll from the American Hockey League for last night's game against the Boston Bruins all but confirmed it. The fact that Mrazek will miss so much time is definitely much more of a surprise however, and not one that will be well received by the Maple Leafs faithful.

This has been a horrible start to the marriage between the Maple Leafs and Mrazek and that is a very bad sign when considering the fact that he is signed to a relatively long term deal. The Leafs signed Mrazek at a cap hit of $3.8 million per season this summer but perhaps more importantly is the fact that he is signed for this season and 2 more beyond it. If Mrazek is unable to remain healthy for any length of time this could prove to be a very long 3 year contract.

Add to that the fact that Mrazek has not exactly been stellar when he has been healthy and you've got an early season issue that could prove troublesome. Mrazek has made just two appearances for the Leafs, playing 100 minutes of actual hockey, and over that stretch he has an ugly 4.20 goals against average and an underwhelming .877 save percentage this season.

The Leafs will now have to wait a month to see if he can bounce back.