Leafs’ Chris Tanev cleared to play after missing most of 2025-26

Chris Tanev will be back on the Toronto Maple Leafs blueline this season, and general manager John Chayka said that the defenseman was “as healthy as anybody,” while speaking at his team’s media day ahead of 2026 training camp.

Tanev, 26, played just 11 games last season due to various ailments, posting just two assists in that time, and last played on Dec. 25, 2025, in an overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators. Now 10 months after that game, he’s ready to take on the 2026-27 season in the third year of a six-year contract which pays him an average annual value of $4.5 million and features a full no-movement clause. 

In Tanev’s first season in Toronto in 2024-25, he posted three goals and 15 assists in 75 games, which marked the second-most games played in a single regular season of his career, trailing only his 82 games with the Calgary Flames in 2021-22. 

“He had a good summer,” Chayka said of Tanev’s status. “He had a pretty large surgery to finish [last] season and has had an amazing recovery. I feel really confident that his injuries are in a good place; he’s as healthy as anybody.”

Set to take on his 16th NHL season, having made his NHL debut with the Vancouver Canucks in the 2010-11 campaign, Tanev will hope to bring consistency to a blueline that proved faulty last season, conceding 299 goals across 82 games, ranking second worst in the NHL and only ahead of Tanev’s former Canucks, who allowed 316. 

Throughout Tanev’s career, he has been a reliable defensive defenseman, but has battled injuries throughout. Still, he amassed 36 goals and 174 assists for 210 points in 878 career regular-season contests, through his time with the Canucks, Flames, Dallas Stars and Leafs. 

He and the Leafs will open camp on Thursday, as they look ahead to the 2026-27 season opener against the Montreal Canadiens on Sept. 29.