{"id":664519,"date":"2026-05-11T20:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T20:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/664519\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T20:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T20:01:08","slug":"maple-leafs-prospect-ben-danford-joins-marlies-for-playoff-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/664519\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs prospect Ben Danford joins Marlies for playoff push"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Marlies could receive a blue-line boost.<\/p>\n<p>Defence prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/ben-danford\/be268abf-e46b-4f82-8867-4a741c7f939f\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"be268abf-e46b-4f82-8867-4a741c7f939f\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ben Danford<\/a> was assigned to the AHL club ahead of its division final against the Cleveland Monsters, the team <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AHLMarliesPR\/status\/2053844591095288105\" rel=\"nofollow\">announced<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Danford, 20, joined the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/teams\/toronto-maple-leafs\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"toronto-maple-leafs\" data-league=\"nhl\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> organization as a first-round pick (31st overall) in the 2024 draft.<\/p>\n<p>He spent this season with the OHL&#8217;s Brantford Bulldogs, tallying two goals and 14 assists in 37 regular-season games before adding one goal and two assists in 13 post-season contests.<\/p>\n<p>The Bulldogs fell to the Barrie Colts in seven games in the OHL semifinals.<\/p>\n<p>Danford, of Madoc, Ont., also appeared in seven games for Team Canada at the world juniors, where he had one assist.<\/p>\n<p>The Marlies are coming off a series win over the Laval Rocket. Game 1 of the best-of-five North Division final against the Monsters is set for Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Marlies could receive a blue-line boost. Defence prospect Ben Danford was assigned to the AHL club&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-664519","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\/664519","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=664519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}