We were able to get around this problem by just opening up the map object inside the controller by injecting the lealfletData service and then:
angular.module('myModule').controller('MyController', ['$scope', `leafletData`,
function($scope, leafletData) {
leafletData.getMap().then(function(map) {
// do something with leaflet map object here..
});
}
]);
For reference look at the Project's GitHub, and under How to Use section look at 4th code example.