{"id":585652,"date":"2026-04-04T20:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/585652\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T20:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:17:11","slug":"maple-leafs-recall-defenceman-william-villeneuve-on-emergency-basis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/585652\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs recall defenceman William Villeneuve on emergency basis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/william-villeneuve\/c417dca5-723d-4333-aef0-3278a663510c\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"c417dca5-723d-4333-aef0-3278a663510c\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">William Villeneuve<\/a> was recalled from AHL Toronto on an emergency basis heading into the Maple Leafs game against the Los Angeles Kings, the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LeafsPR\/status\/2040494240451400017\" rel=\"nofollow\">team announced.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The move comes after defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/oliver-ekman-larsson\/4289ec26-0f24-11e2-8525-18a905767e44\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"4289ec26-0f24-11e2-8525-18a905767e44\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Oliver Ekman-Larsson<\/a> was listed as doubtful heading into Saturday&#8217;s road tilt due to a lower-body injury suffered in Thursday&#8217;s loss \u2014 which officially eliminated the Maple Leafs from playoff contention \u2014 to the San Jose Sharks. <\/p>\n<p>Ekman-Larsson has eight goals and 30 assists in 73 games this season. He&#8217;s previously missed just three games all season, and none were due to injury.<\/p>\n<p>As for Villeneuve, the 24-year-old has yet to make an appearance in the NHL since being selected 122nd overall in the 2020 draft by Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>The young defenceman has spent the 2025-26 season with the Marlies, logging three goals and 25 assists through 58 games.<\/p>\n<p>Catch the Maple Leafs look to play spoiler against the playoff-hopeful Kings on Saturday, with puckdrop set for 7 p.m. ET \/ 4 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defenceman William Villeneuve was recalled from AHL Toronto on an emergency basis heading into the Maple Leafs game&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-585652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585652","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=585652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}