Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Puck Soup: And then there were two

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- How the Knights and Panthers got to be the last teams standing
- Our predictions for who wins the final
- What went wrong for the Stars and Hurricanes
- Brad Treliving gets the GM's job in Toronto; Dubas to Pittsburgh?
- New coaches in Washington and Nashville
- Ottawa's dragging sale, the debut of "Who he work for?" and lots more...

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>> Subscribe on iTunes
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Panthers or Knights? A Stanley Cup Final rooting guide for 30 other fan bases

The Stanley Cup final matchup has been set, and with hockey’s greatest prize up for grabs, only two teams are left standing.

Spoiler alert: Not yours.

I’m playing the odds a bit here, since 30 teams are on the sidelines. Plus I’m assuming that fans of the Panthers and Golden Knights have other things to worry about right now. Does that happen when your team is in the final? Let’s just say I wouldn’t know, but it sounds reasonable.

Great. What about everyone else? We’ve got what should be a great matchup ready to go, and maybe sitting back and enjoying the show without a rooting interest sounds good to you. But some of us aren’t wired that way, and we need to have a team to root for – or root against – to really get into a series.

If that’s you, I’m here to help. I’ve got a suggestion of which team to cheer for, for fans of all 30 of the loser teams valiant nonparticipants. Let’s do this.

Anaheim Ducks

Sorry Shea Theodore, but expansion cousins need to stick together. That’s especially true when your shared origin story is some random midweek announcement that came literally a few months before your first season would start.

Pick: Panthers

Arizona Coyotes

Has that desert-based rivalry with the Golden Knights ever turned into anything? Not really, but we can pretend. And besides, the Panthers may be the only other market that’s had to deal with more snotty remarks from old-timers about being better off in Quebec City.

Pick: Panthers

Boston Bruins

It’s tempting to pick the Panthers here, since that would retcon that first round from “all-time stunning upset” to “at least kind of understandable”. But if Florida wins, especially as easily as they did over Toronto and Carolina, it will just reinforce what a missed opportunity that loss really was. Do we want Brad Marchand to spend the rest of his life knowing one missed breakaway cost his team an easy Stanley Cup? Everyone else does, yes, absolutely, but not Bruins fans. Instead, go ahead and root for Bruce Cassidy to get the ring he couldn’t get in Boston.

Pick: Golden Knights

Buffalo Sabres

Hey, remember when the Sabres openly tanked for a few years and ended up with a pair of second overall picks, then figured the future was bright because Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart were the sort of players who could get you to a final? Turns out they were right, kind of.

Now it’s a question of which guy you resent more. Let’s just say I don’t think this is a tough call.

Pick: Panthers

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Monday, May 29, 2023

Filling in the roster for the 2023 playoffs all-disappointment team

It’s the third round of the NHL playoffs, still, thanks to a Dallas Stars team that doesn’t seem to want to quit. With the Golden Knights wobbling and the Panthers resting up, we’re almost at the finish line.

Are you feeling disappointed yet?

Probably. Only three teams remain, which means 29 fan bases are experiencing mandatory misery. Certainly, fans of the 13 playoff teams on the sidelines will be looking for someone to blame.

That’s where we come in. Every year, right around this time, we like to assemble an all-star roster of playoff letdowns. It’s our chance to shine a spotlight on some of those players who were curiously absent from the highlight reels when they were needed most.

As always, we’re not mad, just disappointed. We'll be taking at least one player per playoff team. And we’ll build from the net out, the way all great sad teams do.


Goaltenders

Andrei Vasilevskiy, Lightning

Goaltending is weird, man. After spending the better part of a decade as the NHL’s most bankable big-game goalie (including three straight years with long playoff runs where he put up a .920 save percentage or better), Vasilevskiy posted the worst numbers of any playoff goalie with at least five starts. I guess that’s just what happens when you’re facing an offensive juggernaut like the playoff Maple Leafs.

Linus Ullmark, Bruins

From the sounds of things, they’ve already engraved his name on the Vezina. Luckily for him, that award is based entirely on the regular season, because Ullmark became the story of the Bruins’ shocking first-round loss. That’s not entirely him – he was hurting, and fatigue was clearly an issue, so Jim Montgomery probably should have swapped in Jeremy Swayman for a game earlier in the series. Instead, the Bruins rode Ullmark until he started to sputter in Game 5, then let him get shelled in Game 6 before benching him with the season on the line.

It didn’t work, and combined with last year’s performance that saw him lose the starter’s job after just two games, it has to create at least a few questions about how reliable Ullmark can be in the postseason.

Stuart Skinner, Oilers

We always have a third goalie on this team, if only because we’ll probably need one. The Oilers may have wished they had a third option too. Skinner was a great story this year, winning the starter’s job as a rookie and even making the all-star team. But he stumbled in the playoffs, especially against the Golden Knights; it got so bad that some Oiler fans were even asking for Jack Campbell to take over. Goaltending wasn’t the only reason they lost, but it was sure one of them, so we'll give him this spot in a narrow decision over Vitek Vanecek.

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Friday, May 26, 2023

Is Sergei Bobrovsky having the most amazing Old Guy Goalie playoff run ever?

Sergei Bobrovsky is the story of the NHL playoffs, and it may not be all that close. At 34 and coming off a season that saw him post substandard numbers across the board, the most expensive active goalie in the league has suddenly transformed from punchline to brick wall. A player who wasn’t even considered good enough to be the starter on an underdog eight-seed when the playoffs began might be about to have his name engraved on the Conn Smythe.

It’s been a pretty wild story. Have we ever seen anything like it?

I’m not sure we have. Oh, we’ve seen goalies get hot in the playoffs before. But most of those stories weren’t all that unexpected – nobody was shocked to see a legend like Marty Brodeur, Dominik Hasek or Patrick Roy look unbeatable, and Tim Thomas had just won his second Vezina the year he had arguably the greatest postseason a goalie has ever had at 36.

Other times, we see younger goalies go on a tear, like J.S. Giguere, Kirk McLean or Ron Hextall. That’s cool too, but in a different way, because you wonder if you’re seeing a guy reach a new tier that they’ll stay at for years. It doesn’t always work out that way, but you never know.

But this? A goalie who’s been around forever, and has a recent track record of mediocrity? Those guys are supposed to be known quantities. They’re not supposed to suddenly morph into Jacques Plante. And yet here we are. Bobrovsky is three-quarters of the way to almost single-handedly winning a Stanley Cup.

I’m not sure there’s a precedent for this. So I figured I’d go back through the history books and find out. I pulled up a list of the best postseasons ever had by a 30+ goalie, based on hockey-reference’s Goals Saved Above Average stat. That’s a flawed number – expected goals are better – but it has the advantage of being available for all of history and not just the analytics era, so it’s a decent starting point.

I picked out eight goalies, including Bobrovsky. Let’s start the list with the man himself, as we look back on some all-time old goalie heaters and ask: Was this run more unexpected than what Bobrovsky is doing in 2023?

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Thursday, May 25, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: One down, one to go

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- The Panthers sweep the Hurricanes
- Did Matthew Tkachuk just have the best "clutch" week in NHL history
- Jesse Granger on the Knights being one game away
- Ian fires back over his Sens ownsership reporting
- Lots of listener email
- Gilbert Gotfried for some reason?
- Mark Messier's infamous guarantee and lots more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Puck Soup: Swept away

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Thoughts on both conference finals being duds
- A chaotic week in Toronto
- The Flames find their new GM
- Lots of teams still need coaches
- Arizona arena drama affecting player decisions
- Survivor finale preview, and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
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>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.




Wednesday, May 24, 2023

The copycat’s guide to what to learn (and to avoid) from the NHL’s final four

We’re down to four teams left in the playoffs, which means 28 teams standing around trying to figure out what went wrong and what to do next. This being the NHL, most of the those teams will settle on the obvious answer: Pick one or more of the teams that’s still alive, and copy what they did.

But which team? And what do you copy? That’s where we come in. It’s time for the annual copycat’s guide to the final four.

Every year, I like to find three lessons from each of the conference finalists that I’d like to see other teams copy. The emphasis here is on what’s fun for fans, since that’s the supposed to be whole point of this league. I’ll also find one lesson that isn’t fun but that I’m worried will be the one that teams choose, and try to talk them out of it.

Let's see which lessons the final four teams are offering up this year.

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Friday, May 19, 2023

For the first time in nine years, Brendan Shanahan’s team feels like the bad old Leafs

There it is again, that funny feeling.

If you’re a Toronto Maple Leaf fan that’s old enough, you had it when Punch Imlach was doing Harold Ballard’s dirty work, shuffling Lanny McDonald out of town and antagonizing Darryl Sittler.

You had it on and off but mostly on under Gerry McNamara, and Gord Stellick, and Floyd Smith.

It went away when Ballard died and Cliff Fletcher arrived, and most stayed hidden on the way to the Pat Quinn era. But then it came back with John Ferguson Jr. We thought it was gone when Brian Burke arrived, but it wasn’t, and by the time Dave Nonis was in control, it was almost overwhelming.

And then, under Brendan Shanahan, it went away. Until today.

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Revisiting the right, wrong and very wrong of my oddly specific NHL predictions

One of my favorite posts to write every year is my Oddly Specific Predictions for the coming season. Shortly before opening night, I'll go through each team and make one prediction that’s way too detailed. Anyone can guess that something might happen; I’ll try to tell you where and when and exactly how. It’s become an annual tradition, and it’s all in good fun.

One of my least favorite posts to write is this one, where I see how those predictions actually did. Let’s just say it’s not pretty.

That’s the whole point, of course, and some years are better than others. Last year featured probably the most unlikely hit that I’ll ever have, as I not only predicted that 30-year-old defensive defenseman Joel Hanley would score his first-ever regular season goal, but nailed the exact game he would do it in.

I probably should have dropped the mic and quit while I was ahead, but that’s not how the prediction game works. I made a new slate of calls for the 2022-23 season, which you can find here. And now it’s time to take my medicine and see how they hold up.

As always, we’ll divide the list into various categories that highlight the ones I got wrong, the ones I got embarrassingly wrong, and the ones I got right. Will there be anything at all in that last group? Miracles happen, so let’s find out how I did.

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Thursday, May 18, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: Migrating Coyotes

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Ian is back from his Europe trip with an update on the Senators sale
- The Coyotes seem to be on the move - but where?
- Teeing up the conference finals
- Jesse Granger on the Golden Knights
- Conn Smythe favorites and darkhorses
- Listener mail, this week in hockey history and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Puck Soup: Leafs lose

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- A look ahead at Stars/Knights and Panthers/Hurricanes
- My thoughts on another Leafs loss
- What's next for the Oilers, Devils and Kraken
- Is this finally the end for Arizona?
- New leadership for the Flyers, more twists in the Sens sale, and lots more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.




Every Leafs playoff loss of the Shanahan era, ranked from least to most painful

The Leafs lost in the playoffs. Again. Six times, in fact.

That’s progress, in a sense – the most playoff games they’ve lost in one postseason during the Brendan Shanahan era. That’s the reward you get for winning a round. More losing, what fun.

If you’re counting, and I am, that makes it 29 postseason games that the Leafs have lost since their first appearance of the Shanahan/Matthews era in 2017, a span that covers the Capitals, Bruins (twice), Blue Jackets, Canadiens, Lightning (twice) and Panthers. Of course, not all losses are created equal. Some are significantly more painful than others.

Hey, that sounds like an excuse for a ranking. Let’s do that.

But first, a caveat: I very much get that some Leaf fans will want no part of this exercise. I gave it a few extra days to let you work through the grieving process on this latest exit, but that’s going to be nowhere near enough for some of you. If you want to exit out of this article like this guy, I totally get it.

But we all process tough times in different ways, and some of us like to talk our way through them with our miserable fellow travellers. If that’s you, come and join our little support circle as we count down every Maple Leafs playoff loss of this era, from least to most painful.


29: 2017, Round 1, Game 1: Capitals 3, Maple Leafs 2 (OT)

The very first playoff game of the Shanahan era was also the first loss. But it was close, and that felt like a victory against a heavily favored Caps team that had just won the Presidents’ Trophy. Sure, the winning goal was a little bit weak, and of course it had to be Tom Wilson who scored. But just getting to overtime against a team that was supposed to be unbeatable was a win in its own way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5bX5-p7xYM

The playoffs are fun! They’re fun, right?

28: 2023, Round 2, Game 1: Panthers 4, Leafs 2

Ah, it feels like it was only weeks ago, doesn’t it? We were all so young back then. We were also still a little hungover from finally seeing the team win a round, so this one couldn’t hurt all that much. Even though they lost, the Leafs played reasonably well, so the outlook for the rest of the series still looked bright. Besides, it was funny to see Paul Maurice holding up his fingers, as if one gesture could suddenly convince all the refs to call prison rules for the rest of the series.

27: 2018, Round 1, Game 4: Bruins 3, Maple Leafs 1

I’ll be honest, I have zero recollection of this game. (Checks box score.) Oh hey cool, Tomas Plekanec was a Leaf for a bit. He scored in this one, which saw the Leafs play reasonably well but run into a strong Tuukka Rask game. Man, why can’t we ever draft a goalie like that.

26: 2021, Round 1, Game 1: Canadiens 2, Maple Leafs 1

This was an awful game, but not because of the loss. Instead, it will best be remembered for the devastating John Tavares injury that took him out of the series. The heavily favored Leafs went on to lose a dull game, but that barely mattered, and if anything it felt understandable given that they'd just seen their leader carried off the ice. Once word came down that Tavares would be OK for the long-term, we all settled back in to watch the Leafs bulldoze the inferior Habs. Which they did. For three games.

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Monday, May 15, 2023

The Panthers offer a lesson for the Leafs, just not the one they've ever wanted to hear

Let me know if any of this sounds familiar.

There’s a team that’s very skilled, especially up front, and they’re coming off an excellent regular season. The blueline can be shaky and the goaltending is a question mark, but when things are going well they can outscore those problems. Still, they’re fighting the ghosts of an almost impossibly long playoff drought without so much as a series win. Last season they lost to the Lightning in the first round, despite having home ice. But this year, things are different. They finally break through and win a round for the first time in forever, capping it off with a dramatic overtime win on the road in Game 6. The drought is over. It’s different this time.

And then they get knocked aside with ease in round two, losing a short series they were barely ever in. Right back to square one, or worse.

That’s the 2022-23 Maple Leafs, obviously. But it’s also the 2021-22 Panthers.

All of it matches up – every word of it. The similarities are almost eerie. And maybe that’s good news for miserable Maple Leaf fans right now. Because as painful as last year’s exit ended up being for the Panthers, now they’re on to the conference final. Hell, they might even be the Stanley Cup favorites. What a difference a year can make. There is hope. The Panthers are the proof.

So how do you do it?

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Saturday, May 13, 2023

Did the Maple Leafs get screwed on a controversial no-goal? Explaining the call

As you’ll see from the replay, the initial celebration turns out to be in vain, after a replay review to determine whether the puck ever actually crossed the goal line.

So was it in? It sure seems like it.

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Friday, May 12, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: Staying alive

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Ian is in Europe so I'm joined by Shayna Goldman
- The Leafs show up and stay alive
- The Oilers even the series
- The Alex Pietrangelo slash
- It's a new old start for the Flyers
- Lots of listener mail, especially on initials
- Why I'd trade Connor Hellebuyck
- A young person learns the legend of Yellow Sunday, and more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Puck Soup: Do or die

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Thoughts on all four series, including that one
- The Blackhawks win the lottery
- The Rangers make a coaching change
- Gabriel Landeskog will miss another year
- And more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
>> Listen on Spotify

>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.




It's the end of an era for this stupid Leafs team, so we might as well enjoy it

It’s over. Finally.

The seven-year journey that saw Brendan Shanahan and Kyle Dubas and Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner combine to create a Leafs team that was somehow both the best of the modern era but also the biggest failure – that story ends tonight. Or maybe Friday. Or maybe a few days after that. But definitely soon.

It ends in one of two ways. Either with one of the greatest comebacks in playoff history, as a team that can’t win when it matters finds a way to do it four straight times and finally, mercifully, permanently slays its own well-earned reputation for always playing down to the moment. Or it ends in defeat, maybe even a humiliating sweep, at which point the process of tearing it all down finally begins.

Two pathways, headed in opposite directions, but only one destination: One way or another, it’s the end of an era. This is finally over.

If you’re a Maple Leafs fan, you’re probably thinking: Praise Wendel. We can’t take any more of this. Just let it end.

And that’s why today, as we count down the hours to Game 4, shouldn’t feel like a funeral. If anything, this is a celebration. Embrace it. We’re getting out, whichever way this goes. This prison is either going to throw open the front doors or it’s going to crumble down around us, but either way, we’ll finally see the sun. It may be just hours away. And it’s a good thing.

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Monday, May 8, 2023

Draft lottery power rankings: Chaos, comedy and conspiracies for Connor

The biggest draft lottery in almost a decade has arrived, and tonight’s the night we find out who’s going to get to take Connor Bedard with the first overall pick. It’s a top-heavy draft, meaning the early order is even more important than most years. And with so many team having tanked accidentally been terrible all at the same time, those ping pong ball bounces will be a make-or-break moment for several franchises.

You can find the actual odds here, but we like to go a little deeper. It’s time for the annual draft lottery power rankings, in which we figure out which results would lead to chaos, conspiracies and comedy. The first-ever edition of these rankings came in 2015, when a different Connor was the big prize. Let’s just say that one was very funny right up until it wasn’t. How will this year turn out? We’ll find out in a few hours, but for now, let’s get to the rankings.

The "Maximum Chaos" Ranking

If there’s one team every true fan cheers for, it’s (checks notes) whoever’s playing the Leafs. But if there are two, then the other one is Team Chaos.

Not ranked: Columbus Blue Jackets – After years of hype, Bedard goes to a team that barely anyone even hates? Lame.

5. Ottawa Senators – The Coyotes own their pick from the Jakob Chychrun trade. It would be fun if Ottawa moved all the way up to the second spot and we all got to momentarily think Arizona had pulled off a heist, before remembering that the pick is top-five protected.

4. Detroit Red Wings – Detroit winning a draft lottery? Their fans would be so confused.

3. Montreal Canadiens – Their fan reactions were absolutely phenomenal at last year’s draft. Granted, that was in Montreal. Would the whole fan base show up in Nashville? For Connor Bedard, maybe they would.

2. The 1001st number – Aaron Portzline dug into the complicated process behind the lottery, which doesn’t work the way most fans think it does. There are no ping pong balls with team logos on it, but rather 14 numbers that add up to 1,001 possible combinations, of which 1,000 are assigned to teams. What happens if that one unused number wins? Nothing, really; they’d just redo it. But it would still be fun to imagine a room full of team reps frantically searching their lists until they realized that none of them had it.

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Thursday, May 4, 2023

The Athletic Hockey Show: The next episode

On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Ian takes us behind the scenes of his conversation with Snoop Dogg
- How this could change the Senators' bidding
- Two four-goal games, two losses
- Thoughts on the Leafs in round two
- A look back at the Sharks/Wings series of 1994
- Listener mail and lots more...

The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)




Should that penalty be a minor or a major? It’s not as simple as you might think

This postseason has had some minor controversies. And also some major ones.

That’s pretty standard in the NHL, but this year the twist is that a lot of these controversies really are about minor vs. major. As in: Is this a two-minute minor penalty, or a five-minute major? Or is it maybe a match penalty, which is also five minutes, but apparently different from a major?

A big part of this year’s story is the still relatively new process of reviewing major and match penalty calls. Referees can now take another look in certain situations where the original call was five minutes, just to make sure. It’s a nice idea, even if it doesn’t always work. But it leads to a bigger question.

Do you know the difference between a minor and a major?

On one level, of course you do: One if two and one is five, and if it’s five then the penalty won’t end on a powerplay goal. The minors are for fouls that are, well, minor, while the majors are for the ones that cross the line into something more.

That’s all true, but it’s frustratingly vague. And if you’re a hockey fan, I’m guessing it may be one of those things where you assume you’re supposed to just know the right answer, so you’ve never bothered to asked.

Well, let’s go ahead and ask it. What does the rulebook say? What’s the criteria that separates a minor penalty from a major?

The short answer: It’s not that simple.

For the longer answer, we have to dig into the rulebook a bit. Because as it turns out, while a lot of this is reasonably well-defined, the criteria changes significantly based on what penalty is being called.

If you’ve always assumed that there was one consistent answer that applies to everything, you’re going to be frustrated. But if you just want to figure out what the referees are doing out there, and maybe have an article you can bookmark and revisit the next time a minor/major debate breaks out, then I’ve got you covered.

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Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Puck Soup: Sean take a victory lap

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Leafs won! And also some other stuff happened
- We go through the four second-round series
- What's next for the eight losers
- Sutter fired, Quenneville maybe back, draft lottery, Snoop Dogg and more...

>> Listen on The Athletic
>> Subscribe on iTunes
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>> Get weekly mailbags and special bonus episodes by supporting Puck Soup on Patreon for $5.




Tavares, curses and Round 2: The first ever “the Leafs actually won” mailbag

I’ve been doing this writing thing for a long time, dating back to my first blogspot post back in 2008. I’ve written a lot of different things, many of them deeply weird. I’ve covered drafts, all-star games and Stanley Cup finals. I’ve impersonated an NHL GM, tricked a player into thinking he’d been traded at the deadline, and debated Ken Dryden on TV.

But there’s one thing I’ve never had a chance to do, until now: A reader mailbag about the Toronto Maple Leafs actually winning something.

Oh, we’ve done Leaf mailbags. Have we ever. Just not like this. Not when we’re all… what’s the word? You know, the one that means the opposite of miserable. Look, we’re still getting used to this, give us an adjustment period.

I put out the call for questions on Sunday morning. Here’s what I got from those of you who were somehow sober enough to put a coherent thought together.

I’m conflicted. Like a lot of Leafs fans, I said the regular season didn’t matter for two or three years running and felt that winning in the first round this season in particular was merely table stakes. Now that they have accomplished what I felt was the bare minimum for a team with this much prime talent, am I supposed to feel good? Am I allowed to enjoy this?

I’m caught between wanting to be elated and also having the feeling of a parent who told their kid to tidy up their room 67 times before they finally did it. Please advise. – Mike S.

Yes, you should feel good. Yes, you’re allowed to enjoy it. No, they haven’t won anything all that meaningful yet, but so what. As long as you’re not going full throttle as if they just won the Cup, you’re good.

For one thing, if they’d lost again – especially after blowing a 3-1 series lead – then we’d all have been miserable. And more than that, the team would have been blown up. There was no avoiding it. Being a Leaf fan after another early exit would have been absolutely awful. Now we don't have to be. If you sit by the phone all day waiting for bad news and the call never comes, that’s worth celebrating.

But even more importantly, it’s OK to just enjoy it when your team makes you happy. That was the point of last week’s post on non-Cup playoff runs; when only one team can win the Cup every year and there are 32 teams in line, you can’t rely on that as your sole source of joy. You’d lose your mind, and the league would lose its fan base. It’s OK to cheer on the baby steps.

Your kids finally cleaned their room, and they did a good job of it. Screw it, take them out for ice cream. We have to embrace the joy where we can find it.

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