{"id":16097,"date":"2025-07-23T14:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/16097\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T14:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:02:11","slug":"cancer-survivor-joshua-to-wear-kessels-no-81-with-toronto-maple-leafs-i-love-the-mojo-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/16097\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer survivor Joshua to wear Kessel’s No. 81 with Toronto Maple Leafs: ‘I love the mojo there’"},"content":{"rendered":"

After being traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>\u00a0earlier this month,\u00a0Dakota\u00a0Joshua confirmed to the Toronto Sun Tuesday<\/a> that will keep his\u00a0No. 81 with his new club.<\/p>\n

Joshua, who was acquired from the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> for a fourth-round pick, will be the first Maple Leafs players to wear the number full-time\u00a0since Phil Kessel was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a02015.<\/p>\n

Beyond an affinity for the number, Joshua and Kessel share something else in common – both are cancer survivors. Kessel fought testicular cancer early in his career with the Boston Bruins<\/a> and Joshua was diagnosed last year, having a tumour removed before returning to play in 57 games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the mojo there,\u201d Joshua said wearing of the digits. \u201cI knew his story, and looking forward to playing a long time here like Kessel did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Joshua, 29, finished with seven goals and 14 points last season as his production took a downturn as he worked his back from the surgery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure it puts your life in perspective,\u201d Joshua said.\u00a0\u201cThe biggest takeaway is that anything can happen to you, so make the most of [life]. But after coming out the other side, I\u2019m stronger as a person. It makes you confident you can get through anything.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Being traded to the Maple Leafs represents a full-circle moment for Joshua, who was drafted by Toronto in the fifth round of the 2014 draft, but was traded to the St. Louis Blues<\/a>\u00a02019 before ever playing a game with the club.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joshua had a career-high 18 goals and 32 points in in 63 games with the Canucks during the 2023-24 season, adding four goals and eight points in 13 playoff games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Dearborn, Mich., native is also looking to bring an edge to a Leafs team that parted ways with Ryan Reaves<\/a> earlier this month, having accumulated 181 penalty minutes over 241 career games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, that\u2019s my game,\u201d Joshua said. \u201cIt\u2019s chip in offensively, play an up-and-down style. [Fighting] is part of the job. I can\u2019t wait until we get started.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs\u00a0earlier this month,\u00a0Dakota\u00a0Joshua confirmed to the Toronto Sun Tuesday that will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-16097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}