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Tyler Bozak won’t require surgery on his injured biceps.
The Maple Leafs centre suffered the injury on a faceoff late in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal against the Boston Bruins, Leafs vice-president of hockey operations Dave Poulin told the Toronto Sun on Wednesday afternoon.
“(The coaching staff) thought potentially he could go in Game 6, but they did not know right until game time (that Bozak could not),” Poulin said. “The fact that he tried was pretty valiant. He was willing to take it to the nth degree.”
Bozak participated in the pre-game warmup on Sunday but did not play that night. He also sat out the deciding Game 7 on Monday. The Leafs held a 4-1 lead in the third period in Boston but lost 5-4 in overtime on a goal by Patrice Bergeron, ending thier season.
Bozak’s spot on the roster was taken by Joe Colborne.
The injury was not related to the one that Bozak suffered against the Tampa Bay Lightning on April 24, causing him to miss the final two games of the regular season, Poulin said.
Bozak faces a recovery period of up to four weeks.
Bozak is headed for unrestricted free agency in July. The Leafs and his agent, Wade Arnott, agreed to put contract talks on the shelf until the season ended.
It’s expected that talks could re-open soon.
The Leafs will gather at the Air Canada Centre on Thursday to clean out their lockers before dispersing for the summer.

Even though it had all the appeal of a car crash for Leafs fans, Monday’ dramatic Game 7 conclusion to the Eastern Conference quarter-final vs. the Boston Bruins set record audience numbers for CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada.

According to a CBC press release, the game attracted a whopping 5.1 million viewers, destroying previous records for any opening-round game and for any Leafs playoff game ever. Monday’s game eclipsed the previous record of 4.5 million, set just one day earlier when the two teams met in Game 5 in Toronto.

Prior to this year, the record for an opening-round game was 3.9 millionfor Game 6 of the Leafs-vs. Senators on April 18, 2004.  The largest audience for any Leafs playoff game was the infamous Game 7 of the Toronto vs. Los Angeles Kings Western Conference final back on May 29, 1993.

The numbers cited above are overall average.The audience peaked at the zenith of interest as 8.2 million were watching at 10:04 p.m. when Patrice Bergeron scored the overtime winner to complete the incredible Bruins comeback and the 5-4 victory.

The audience for the game peaked at nearly 8.2 million viewers at 10:04 p.m. ET when Boston’s Patrice Bergeron scored the series-winning goal in overtime.

A biceps injury kept centre Tyler Bozak out of the Maple Leafs’ lineup for the final two playoff games.
Leafs assistant general manager Claude Loiselle confirmed the injury during an interview on The Fan 590 late on Tuesday afternoon.
Bozak, headed for unrestricted free agency this summer, originally suffered an injury during the Leafs’ game in Tampa Bay on April 24 and missed the final two games of the regular season.
Whether the 27-year-old has played in his last game as a Leaf remains to be seen. Many think the Leafs still don’t have a true No. 1 centre, and though Bozak is capable of valuable minutes, he doesn’t necessarily have top-line talent.
Bozak’s absence in the Eastern Conference quarterfinal against the Boston Bruins caused coach Randy Carlyle to make some line changes, with Joe Colborne coming into the lineup. Colborne is a raw prospect, to the point that he lost all nine faceoffs he took in the decisive Game 7.

BOSTON – Want to bet on the Maple Leafs tonight? If you do, there’s money to be made.

Despite losing two games in a row and scoring just one goal in each of those, the Bruins are heavily favoured to win Game 7 and take the Eastern Conference quarter-final series tonight at the TD Garden.

At most major  sports books, the Bruins are listed as minus-170 favourites meaning that to profit $100 you would have to risk a stake of $170. The Leafs, meanwhile, are priced as clear underdogs at plus-150. At those odds, a $100 wager would return you $250 (or a $150 profit.)

The over-under total for tonight’s game is at five, indicative of the tight-checking contests we have seen in Games 5 and 6. Puck drop at the TD Garden is slated for 7 p.m.

There will be a roster wrinkle for the Boston Bruins on Sunday night when they try to send the Maple Leafs packing for the summer.
Bruins defenceman Andrew Ference did not make the trip to Toronto for Game 6 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal. Ference, who missed Game 2 because of a suspension, will be replaced by one of Dougie Hamilton or Wade Redden.
“Randy (Carlyle) doesn’t talk about his roster and I don’t talk about mine,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said on Sunday morning.
Ference is day to day with an undisclosed injury or illness. Redden, who missed Game 5 and was replaced by Matt Bartkowski, participated in the morning skate.
It doesn’t matter who is in the Bruins lineup, Carlyle has a sound idea of what he thinks the visitors will bring when the puck drops just after 7:30 p.m.
“I expect a desperate hockey club,” Carlyle said. “It was very evident in Game 3 here. They came out and established a fore-checking game, pack mentality and were hard on the puck.”
If the Leafs extend their season and force a winner-take-all Game 7 in Boston on Monday night, they’re going to have to do something they have not done yet: Win at home. The Leafs’ two wins in the best-of-seven series, which the Bruins lead 3-2, have come in Beantown.
“The early stages of my tenure here, I found our team was paralyzed at home,” Carlyle said.
“We did not play anywhere near as confident, we weren’t relaxed, we weren’t a lot of things. But I think that has changed dramatically.
“We wanted a new identity, we wanted a different type of hockey club, and we wanted to make sure this rink was going to be a different type of building to come in and get points out of. To some degree you could say we have accomplished a little bit, but there is still a long way to go.”