Leafs’ McClement’s wife gives birth to boy

Toronto Maple Leafs center Jay McClement.

TORONTO — Jay McClement missed the Maple Leafs’ game against the Colorado Avalanche, but he had a very good reason.

McClement’s wife gave birth to the couple’s first child Tuesday, according to Toronto coach Randy Carlyle.

"Jay McClement is now a proud father of a baby boy, him and his wife," Carlyle said after a 2-1 loss. "Everything’s supposedly went well."

Carlyle said after McClement missed the team’s morning skate that with no control over the forward’s wife giving birth, "all we can wish for is the mother and expected child are healthy." The good news is that they are.

Without McClement, the Leafs dressed Jamie Devane, who played just 4:51 against Colorado and finished with a minus-1 rating. Toronto’s other fourth-liners, Troy Bodie and Trevor Smith, each played under six minutes.

But Carlyle was not willing to concede that the Leafs, missing Nikolai Kulemin with an ankle injury and Frazer McLaren with a broken finger, were banged up.

"You’re going to have to deal with adversity throughout the course of the season and injuries and birth of children, family illness," Carlyle said. "All those things roll into the things that you have to deal with."

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