TORONTO

The snark that Connor Carrick brings to the Maple Leafs could be missing for a couple of days.

The defenceman did not come back after the first period of Tuesday’s 5-4 overtime win over the Winnipeg Jets, with an upper body injury, tempering some of the Leafs’ enthusiasm about the big two points. Carrick and Jake Gardiner are the second most reliable pairing after workhorses Morgan Rielly and Nikita Soshnikov. Carrick was being counted on to try and slow a physical Jets’ team.

“It’s not ideal,” Babcock understated of having to juggle the remaining five through the rest of the night. “You spread the minutes around really good and we spent a lot of time in the offensive zone which helped them. It would’ve been way worse if they were wearing us out in our own zone. Connor moves the puck for us and he and Gards are a good pair.

“You leave the game, you’re obviously not playing right away (in games this week) so that will give us a chance to watch (Alexey) Marchenko.”

Marchenko is the Russian defender the Leafs picked up on waivers from Detroit two weeks ago. It was thought Babcock would not wait so long to use him, given his familiarity with Marchenko from his time with the Red Wings, but despite some own zone issues, Babcock hasn’t made a switch with Marchenko or fellow black ace Martin Marincin.

Meanwhile, Tuesday was also a strong game for Zaitsev, who reached 25 assists and played 22 minutes. All the Leafs defencemen contributed to 37 shots.