{"id":441129,"date":"2026-01-29T15:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/441129\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T15:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:56:08","slug":"maple-leafs-recall-defenceman-rifai-assign-mermis-thrun-to-ahl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/441129\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs recall defenceman Rifai, assign Mermis, Thrun to AHL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a class=\"sn-team-post-link\" data-team=\"toronto-maple-leafs\" data-league=\"nhl\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/teams\/toronto-maple-leafs\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> are shaking up their left-shot depth on the back end amid a five-game losing streak.<\/p>\n<p>Rifai has played just 12 games with the Marlies this season after suffering a wrist injury that required surgery during a pre-season game on Sept. 25.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old logged four assists this season, and totalled nine goals and 43 assists across four AHL seasons. Rifai made his NHL debut with the Maple Leafs during the 2023-24 season, failing to register a point in two contests.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old has been on injured reserve since Dec. 10 after taking a knee-on-knee hit from Tampa Bay Lightning forward Gage Goncalves. He was loaned to the Marlies for a conditioning stint on Jan. 12, skating in three games.<\/p>\n<p>Thrun, 24, is minus-1 across four games with the Maple Leafs this season after being acquired from San Jose in the off-season for Ryan Reaves.<\/p>\n<p>Over four NHL seasons between the Sharks and Maple Leafs, Thrun posted 25 points (five goals, 20 assists) in 123 contests.<\/p>\n<p>The Maple Leafs sit eight points back of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference as they head to Seattle to face the Kraken on Thursday to kick off a six-game road trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs are shaking up their left-shot depth on the back end amid a five-game losing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-441129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}