It’s over. The Brendan Shanahan era is all but done, Mitch Marner is all but gone, and big changes seem imminent in Toronto. The Maple Leafs, or at least this version of them, have failed.
Did it have to be this way?
That’s the big question these days. To hear some tell it, yes, this was the inevitable outcome all along, because playing in a big market like Toronto is just too much to ask from the toughest athletes in the world. Others would tell you that the Shanaplan was doomed from the very start, because it was built around the wrong core. And some would just shake their heads and mutter something about being cursed.
Then there’s the side that says no, it didn’t have to be this way – that there were multiple branching paths along the road that made a different destination possible. That’s the premise of today’s piece, as we look at a half-dozen key checkpoints in recent Maple Leafs history, and wonder what would have happened if a different decision was made.
Our starting point here is 2018 or so. The Leafs have already drafted Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander. They’ve made a surprise playoff run in their first year together, then nearly knocked off the established Bruins in year two. Brendan Shanahan has a plan, and it’s working. While there’s a long way to go, the future is as bright as it’s ever been.
And then… well, we know what comes next. But what if? We won’t go too deep down the alternate history hole on any of these – if you’re looking for fan fic that ends with the Leafs winning all the Cups, you’ll have to write it yourself – but each is worth exploring. And at the end, I'll even let you tell me the right answer.
“Obviously we’re looked upon as… you know, kind of gods here to be honest.” – Mitch Marner, May 2024
Did you enjoy the Maple Leafs’ final media day of the season, at least for players and coaches? I sure did. Nothing quite like being reminded over and over, by just about every player on the team, that they’re “close”. Always close, with these guys. Close to winning something, close to each other, close to making you throw your remote through the TV screen. So close!
This year, we got a memorable bonus quote from the current whipping boy, who decided this would be a good week to compare the players to deities. He’s not even wrong. The Toronto Maple Leafs players really are gods, in their own way. Then again, so was Oizys.
For the record, I don't think Marner's "gods" quote was especially controversial; I think we can all appreciate what he was going for, even if he might have preferred to have it come out a bit differently. And if Marner's sound bite was a bit awkward, at least it fit with a larger trend in Leafs land, where the team has spent the last few years leaving quote-based sign posts along to the road to wherever this is that they’ve wound up.
So today, as we wait for the implosion to truly start, let’s remember 12 sound bites that this team offered up during the Brendan Shanahan era, and how they ultimately add up to explain the way it all fell apart.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Another winner-take-all game, another season over. It’s both old hat, because this is what the Leafs do, and brand new, because no team in any sport has ever done this before. We all saw it coming, but we still hoped it wouldn’t. It’s weird to feel stunned by something you knew was inevitable, but that the conflict of being a Leaf fan.
I’m conflicted too, especially when it comes to the most important question: What now? What comes next for a team that’s failed so often but seems so close so success? Do you run it back? Blow it all up? Somewhere in between?
My head says you run it back. My rational side agrees with James and Jonas, who both made convincing cases that now isn’t the time to take a sledgehammer to the organization. Change will come, because this is the NHL and it always does, but firing a GM or a coach or a president who just helped deliver a 115-point team would be an overreaction. Sometimes two very good teams meet in the first round and one has to lose, and that’s it. Be smart, be logical, and keep as much of this crew together as you can.
My heart isn’t convinced. Actually, my heart is kind of sick of these guys. Sick of the excuses. Sick of the promises that next time will be different, always immediately followed by a promise that next time will also be the same because nothing will change. My heart has loved this team since I was a little kid, but can be pretty vindictive about the individual parts. My heart has run out of patience.
So which side is right? I honestly don’t know. So today I’m going to let the two sides fight it out, with a good old-fashioned stream-of-consciousness debate. This might help us get to the right answer. It also might just end up being a therapy session for a long-suffering fan. Either way, I hope you’ll indulge me.
Head vs. heart, with the future of the Maple Leafs on the line. Gentlemen, make your opening statements.
Well, you have to give William Nylander and Kyle Dubas some credit. They know how to build to a dramatic finish.
The weekend’s biggest story came off the ice, as contract negotiations between the Maple Leafs and their talented young winger went down to the wire. With Saturday’s 5:00 p.m. ET deadline looming, we made it well into the afternoon without any kind of indication of where things were headed. As the timer ticked down and it became clear that there wouldn’t be a trade, it started to look like we could actually see the deadline come and go without any kind of deal in place.
And then, with just minutes to go, the word came down: They had a deal.
The details, in case you missed them: Nylander gets a six-year deal that will pay him just under $42-million, and carries a cap hit north of $10-million for this season, before settling in at $6.9-million the rest of the way. He’s expected to play this week, either tomorrow in Buffalo or on Thursday against Detroit.
Let’s make a few observations here, starting with an obvious one: If this really went down the way it’s been described, and the two sides didn’t actually strike a deal until there were just minutes left before the deadline, that is insane. Like, it’s completely nuts.
Maybe we’re just seeing a little dramatic license come into play here. But according to reports, there was no deal until Nylander himself called Dubas just 30 minutes before the deadline, and the actual contract wasn’t signed until there were just eight minutes to spare. If that’s true, or even all that close, it means that what could turn out to be a career-defining decision for both the player and the GM came down to the same sort of last-minute scramble as your high-school history essays. It’s madness.
In the bigger picture, the deal seems to work well enough for both sides. Nylander ultimately got what he was looking for – maybe not the Leon Draisaitl money he was rumored to be using as a starting point, but something north of what David Pastrnak accepted a year ago. That comparison always rankled some fans, since Pastrnak is the better player. But in hindsight he signed for less than he deserved and that’s hardly Nylander’s fault. The young Leaf played hardball, even insisting that his deal contain enough bonuses to make him whole for the time he missed. And in the end, he got just about exactly what he wanted.
As for Dubas and the Leafs, they weren’t able to push Nylander down to the number they were hoping for, and if you insist on a narrative of either side blinking, then that’s the Maple Leafs. But in terms of the long-term cap hit – this year really doesn’t matter – Dubas kept the number under $7-million, if only barely.
Is that too much? It might be. But it’s not, despite the way some are trying to spin it, the sort of deal that forces a GM to break up a team. The Leafs are probably paying Nylander about a half-million more a year than they’d like to. That’s not ideal and a hard cap means you need to squeeze value wherever you can. But it’s the sort of problem that eventually forces you into a move on your fourth line or bottom pair, not with your stars. The Leafs have said all along that they can keep their big four forwards and nothing that happened with Nylander should force them to change that approach.
James Mirtle breaks down the impact in more detail right here. But the big winner here is all of us, who can finally move on to another story. If you’re a Leafs fan, the Nylander drama was looming over everything that the team was doing on the ice. If you’re not, you’re probably wondering how a 60-point winger managed to take over the NHL’s news cycle. Either way, we’re done, and we can all move on to something more important. Like obsessing over contracts for Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews for most of the next year.
I’m kidding. Kind of.
In what can only be described as an inexcusable decision, the NHL still went ahead and played some actual games on the weekend, even as everyone in the hockey world was 100 percent focused on the Nylander drama. Some of those games even shifted our weekly power rankings around. We’ll get to that in a bit. But first, hey, speaking of Cap hits that might be too high …
Road to the Cup
The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.
Tom Wilson was at it again on the weekend. The Capitals winger, fresh off a 14-game suspension for throwing a dumb hit, figured it was time to get back to throwing dumb hits.
Wilson’s hit on Brett Seney resulted in a match penalty, but no further discipline. It wasn’t a hit to head, despite the call on the ice. But it was late and it was from behind on a vulnerable player. As far as suspensions go, it was borderline.
That put the Department of Player Safety in a tough spot. A player’s history comes into play for discipline decisions, but only in the “how many games” phase. In theory, at least, a player’s reputation has nothing to do with whether a hit is suspension-worthy or not. The DoPS basically had two choices: Decide that the hit didn’t rise to the level of a suspension and give Wilson nothing, or decide that it did and then, given his record, sit him down for a long time.
In the end, they decided to go with the former. It may have been the right call; had any player other than Wilson thrown the same hit, maybe most people just shrug it off. The hit wasn’t clean – you’re not allowed to skate through the back of a player who doesn’t have the puck, and never have been – but there’s still such a thing as bad hits that don’t merit suspensions. The DoPS felt that Wilson’s hit was one of them.
But even if the hit wasn’t worth another 20 games, it was dumb. It was unnecessary. Wilson wasn’t breaking up a play or creating a chance or doing anything to help his team. He just saw a guy he could paste and he couldn’t help himself. Or maybe he could – viewed generously, he seems to reconsider at the last second and try to bail on the hit, but it’s too late. Either way, Wilson isn’t even picking his spots. He took his massive suspension for a hit in a meaningless preseason game and now this. The problem is that there just doesn’t seem to be an off switch. He just hits whoever he can, however he can and then apologizes later if he needs to.
It increasingly feels like this can only end one of two ways. Either very, very badly, with somebody getting seriously hurt and Wilson sitting out most of a season. Or with Wilson changing his game so radically that he’s not Tom Wilson anymore. The ideal situation – the one where he still gets to be the dominant physical force the Capitals paid $31-million for but doesn’t throw dumb hits that hurt his team and risk massive suspensions for no benefit – just doesn’t seem to be an option for this guy.
5. Washington Capitals (15-8-3, +12 true goals differential*) – In related news, the defending champs are back in the top five, despite yesterday’s collapse against the Ducks that snapped a seven-game win streak. And yes, Wilson is part of that, because when he’s in the lineup he helps them win.
You could say that the Capitals are running over everyone, but I’ve been assured that it’s more like they’re just gliding around innocently and everyone else keeps backing into them.
4. Colorado Avalanche (15-6-5, +25) – I’ve never fully bought into the Avalanche. I still don’t, if I’m being honest. But at some point the results have to count for more than the gut instinct or whatever else and the Avs are at that point. They haven’t lost in regulation since Nov. 9 and have passed the Jets and Wild in the Central, with the Predators in sight. They’ve earned a spot.
The Maple Leafs’ standoff with winger William Nylander continues this week, with less than two weeks to go until the Dec. 1 deadline to strike a deal. And with the two sides still reportedly far apart on terms and dollars, talk has increasingly turned to the possibility of a trade.
If the Leafs decided to swing a deal, there’d be no shortage of potential landing spots for the talented winger. Our Pierre LeBrun recently looked at nine of the most likely destinations. But that list was only a starting point, and this sort of scenario often results in a mystery team or two lurking in the background. There’s no doubt that plenty of teams around the league are wondering if they’d be the right fit.
So today, let’s look around the league and see if we can help. This is a brainstorming session, so nothing’s off the table. We’ll look at a variety of teams, covering the spectrum from likely destinations for Nylander to teams which seem like much longer shots. And we’ll help everyone involved weigh the pros and cons of pulling off a Nylander blockbuster.
Buffalo Sabres
Pro: Joining the organization would mean that Nylander is reunited with his brother Alexander, which would be great because it would give his dad someone else to go bother for a while.
Con: Dubas once absented-mindedly mentioned that the winger could probably develop into a decent quarterback for the Sabres’ second power-play unit, and as soon as he said “decent quarterback” Buffalo bylaws kicked in and barred Nylander from the city limits.
Anaheim Ducks
Pro: Nylander hasn’t played a single minute of competitive hockey all season long, so he’d immediately fit right in with all of their defensemen.
Con: As with any trade they make this year, departing Ducks players would be slowed down at the airport while trying to drag equipment bags that are unusually heavy and vaguely sound like John Gibson whispering “Take me with you.”
Edmonton Oilers
Pro: As a dynamic offensive winger with a proven track record of producing next to an elite center, Nylander would fill a longstanding team need for a guy they could trade for a mediocre defenseman.
Con: NHL trades are complicated and can take weeks or even months to put together, which probably doesn’t leave enough time for whoever the Oilers’ GM is going to be by the weekend.
Carolina Hurricanes
Pro: Wouldn’t have to send their best player to Toronto in the deal since the entire city is already overflowing with Ahos, according to everyone else in Canada if I’m hearing them correctly.
Con: Nylander would be joining the team with only four months left in the season which isn’t really enough time to get up to speed on detailed positioning and responsibilities outlined in the playbook, which is what Justin Williams insists on calling the postgame choreography.
Vancouver Canucks
Pro: Checks every box on the Canucks’ list of criteria for acquiring a star player, although in fairness for the last 20 years those boxes have just been “Not Mark Messier” and “No seriously, make damn sure he’s not Mark Messier.”
Con: The roster already includes Elias Petterson, so they don’t actually need any other NHL players.
After a relatively quiet draft weekend, it feels like we’re on the verge of some serious fireworks in the NHL off-season. There are plenty of big names still on the trade block, lots of teams with roster holes to fill, and the free-agency window for teams to talk to players is open.
We’re going to see some major headlines over the next few days. But which ones? That’s the multimillion-dollar question.
But if history is any indication, we can safely predict that whatever happens, it won’t be what you were hoping for. It never is. That’s just how the NHL works. So we might as well take some time now to get excited over what could happen, before we’re inevitably let down by what actually does.
In that spirit, here are a half-dozen headlines that I’d like to see over the next few days (but almost certainly won’t).
1) John Tavares signs a one-year max deal
The idea works something like this: Instead of signing a contract for the maximum length (eight years with the Islanders, seven years with anyone else), John Tavares should sign a one-year deal for the maximum dollar value. That would come in just under $16 million, and would make Tavares the highest-paid player in the history of the league in terms of full-season cap hit.
This one is hardly a new concept. In fact, in recent weeks it’s bubbled up from the fringes of hockey thinking to become a fairly regular talking point in Tavares speculation. And let’s be honest, at least part of that is because it’s a scenario that would favour the big-market Maple Leafs.
But there’s another good reason: It kind of makes sense.
That sort of contract would be essentially unheard of in the NHL. We occasionally see short-term deals signed by young RFAs, or by veteran UFAs nearing the end of their career. But an established star in his prime? Those guys almost always go for the longest deal they can get.
But look beyond the hockey world, and the idea starts to feel a little more familiar. NBA players have been willing to sign short contracts; LeBron James set the trend of stars signing one-year deals, and he’s made a fortune doing it. James seems like a pretty smart guy, so if the tactic is good enough for him, you’d think other athletes might at least want to consider it.
Would it be the right move for Tavares? From a purely financial perspective, sure. He’d almost certainly come out ahead on total dollars in the long run, perhaps significantly so. And he’d have control over his future, with the ability to leave a situation that wasn’t working and seek greener pastures elsewhere. That could give him a chance to try out a new home like Toronto, San Jose or Dallas. But it could also mean giving the Islanders one more year to get their act together and sell him on finishing his career there.
There would be downsides. For one, there’s the small but non-zero risk of an injury that torpedoes his long-term value. More importantly, it’s quite possible that Tavares isn’t enjoying his UFA journey, and isn’t eager to sign up to do it all over again a year from now. There’s something to be said for settling into a sense of permanence, even if it ultimately costs you a few dollars down the line.
But from a fan’s perspective, it would be fun to see Tavares blow up some long-held assumptions over how free agency is supposed to work. It feels inevitable that some NHL star will eventually go this route, and when it happens it will scramble our expectations of what an offseason looks like. It might even encourage more players to go to the market, and breathe new life into a UFA process that’s been getting dull over the years.
Tavares is in the perfect position to be that guy. He probably won’t, and if he chooses security and stability nobody will be able to blame him. But a little bit of short-term thinking would make things very interesting over the next few days.
We’re closing in on the July 1 opening of the NHL free agent market, and while much of the attention is focused on big-name UFAs like John Tavares, Ilya Kovalchuk and John Carlson, there’s also the usual batch of excellent young players hitting RFA status. And that means it’s time for our annual round of “Will this be the year that somebody signs an offer sheet?”
We already know the answer. No, it probably won’t.
It should be. There are plenty of players who could be eligible that any team would love to add, including names like William Karlsson, Mark Stone, Jacob Trouba and William Nylander. In a league in which players (especially forwards) hit their prime in their early 20s, offer sheets remain one of the only ways to acquire a young star who can instantly slot into the top of your lineup. For most teams, short of winning the draft lottery in a year with a sure-thing franchise player or two available, it’s just about the only way.
And yet we never see them. The NHL hasn’t had an offer sheet signed in over five years, going back to Ryan O’Reilly’s two-year deal with the Flames back in 2013. There have been only eight in the salary cap era, five of which had already come by 2008. And only three cap-era offer sheets have been signed by players who could be considered stars at the time – O’Reilly, Shea Weber in 2012 and Thomas Vanek in 2007.
It’s not like there’s a shortage of impact players in the RFA pool for teams to target. In 2015, a GM could have made a play for Vladimir Tarasenko. In 2016, there was a chance to sign Nathan MacKinnon, Mark Scheifele, Johnny Gaudreau or Nikita Kucherov. Last year, the target could have been David Pastrnak, Evgeny Kuznetsov or Leon Draisaitl. These are franchise-altering players, many just entering their most productive years, all of them available to any team that was willing to extend an offer. And yet, nothing.
From a distance, none of this makes any sense. Every GM in the league has a tool in their toolbox that can be used to acquire a superstar in his prime, and virtually none of them ever bother to use it.
When hockey fans complain about the lack of offer sheets, they often settle on one culprit: the GMs. If they actually put winning first, the thinking goes, we’d see offer sheets every year. But if their priority was to stay chummy with their colleagues, and to make sure their status in the hockey management old boys club remained in good standing, then they’d think twice. Wouldn’t want to get uninvited from a round of golf at the next GM meetings.
There’s probably some truth to that. But there’s a bigger issue: offer sheets are broken.
Put differently, the problem here isn’t just the 31 men who don’t seem to want to use the system. It’s the system itself. Given the way the rules are currently set up, a lot of the GMs who keep passing on superstar talent are actually acting rationally.
It’s been called the day of the year when NHL GMs make their biggest mistakes. And now, July 1 is almost here. While most Canadians will be busy painting their faces and setting off fireworks, the hockey world will be keeping an eye on the wire for the latest signings.
Most years, that means watching the unrestricted free agents. But this year’s class isn’t an especially strong one. There’s Kevin Shattenkirk, and we’re all breathlessly waiting to see which teams he pretends to be interested in before signing with the Rangers. There are respected veterans, like Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Jarome Iginla. Alexander Radulov might get there, and Ryan Miller will be available. But as far as dramatic storylines, this year’s UFA class won’t have all that much to offer.
So instead, let’s turn our attention to the other July 1 class: players who are already under contract, but will become eligible to sign an extension. The CBA dictates that players on multi-year contracts can sign extensions one year before their current deal expires. And that means we’ll have plenty of big-name players who can re-up with their current teams as early as Saturday.
No doubt, plenty of negotiations have already taken place behind the scenes. Some players will sign almost immediately. Some might take a few days or weeks to get a deal done, like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in 2016. And others could head into the season without a new deal, Steven Stamkos or Anze Kopitar-style, which will no doubt cause some frayed nerves for their team’s fan base.
So today, let’s look at some of the bigger names who are eligible to steal the headlines from this year’s UFAs on July 1.
But is it possible that it won’t happen in Montreal? The Canadiens have been an unpredictable team in recent years, both on and off the ice. They made headlines by trading Price’s friend P.K. Subban last year, and we can’t say for sure exactly how that sat with the goaltender. Price has also had to endure an injury, playoff disappointment and a coaching change, and his team still can’t score any goals for him. Could he secretly have his eye on the door?
Well… not really, no. As juicy a story as that would be, there’s been little indication of any true animosity between the Canadiens and their franchise player, and he’s explicitly said that he plans to stay. We won’t know for sure until the ink is dry on a new deal, but all indications are that it will happen, and probably quickly.
But the story won’t end there. While Price will almost certainly re-sign in Montreal, the question of how much it costs could loom large. Barring some sort of hometown discount, Price could become the highest-paid goaltender in the league. The top cap hit at the position right now belongs to Henrik Lundqvist at $8.5 million. That contract seems like a bit of an outlier — it’s over $1 million more expensive than the second-highest-paid goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky — but it should be in the ballpark for Price. If he wants even more, Marc Bergevin probably won’t have much choice.
Whatever Price winds up getting, Habs fans will be fine with it as long as he can maintain his recent level of play. But how much room does that leave Bergevin to sign guys like Radulov or Andrei Markov, or to get a new deal done for Alex Galchenyuk (if he’s still on the team)? And can Bergevin get a Price deal nailed down quickly enough to know what he’s working with when bidding on this year’s UFA market?
As always in Montreal, we’ll get some off-season drama. It may not end in another star player leaving town, but we’ll see how long the story drags on.
In a special Thursday edition of the Friday Grab Bag:
- The Stanley Cup playoffs have been completely unpredictable. But is that good?
- Just touch the damn conference trophy, guys
- A special World Championships edition of the three comedy stars
- An obscure player who lived out Phil Kessel's dream
- And a look back at where the Senators began: tanking games under a football stadium so they could build the franchise around a legendary bust
In the sports world, there's nothing sadder than seeing someone struggle at the one thing that they used to be the best in the world at.
Michael Jordan clanging jumpers in a Wizards uniform. Tiger Woods limping his way to missed cuts. Brett Favre throwing pick-sixes for the Vikings. It can be uncomfortable to watch, bordering on outright tragic.
So you can be forgiven for wanting to avert your eyes at the sight of Toronto Maple Leafs fans this week, because we're failing badly at the one thing you could always count on us for: Being miserable.
This is supposed to be our thing. Other fans do parades and celebrations and enjoy happiness and hope. Not us. We watch our team lose, we internalize it, and we suffer. We remember the worst moments forever; they're scarred directly into our identity as fans. Kerry Fraser. Jeremy Roenick. It was 4-1. This is what we do. Often publicly, often in uncomfortably over-the-top ways, and almost always with the rest of the hockey world pointing and laughing.
This week, we watched the Maple Leafs lose a playoff series that they absolutely could have won. They had a 2-1 series lead, five of the games went into overtime, and all the underlying numbers were essentially equal. The series was there for the taking. But the Leafs lost, in six games to the Washington Capitals, and now their season is over.
And as Maple Leafs fans, we're... kind of fine with it, actually.
I know that comes as a disappointment to a lot of you out there. For fans of other teams, watching Leafs fans be miserable has pretty much become an end-of-season tradition. It's almost therapeutic, because you know that no matter how bad things get with your own team, at least you're not us. And let's be honest, some portions of the Toronto fan base could stand to be knocked down a peg or two. The tears of Toronto Maple Leafs fans water the tree of hockey liberty, or something like that.
But not this year. There's not much misery to be found around Leafs Nation. We're doing good, thanks for asking.
That's not to say that we're happy about the Leafs' first-round loss. Obviously, an upset win over the Capitals would have been something special, right up there some of the most memorable Maple Leaf wins of a generation. They might have even given the Penguins a run for their money. Heck, maybe they could have gone on a deep run, bringing back memories of the 1992-93 Leafs team that Toronto fans will never shut up about.
But it didn't happen. Marcus Johansson silenced a Toronto crowd with Sunday night's OT winner, and the Leafs season is over. One more lost playoff series to throw on the pile. Yet another year without a Stanley Cup. So where's all the misery?
This is a weird time to start writing about the Maple Leafs again.
When I first started writing about hockey, almost nine years ago, I covered the Leafs pretty much exclusively. Let’s remember back to what things were like back then. John Ferguson Jr. had just been fired. Vesa Toskala was in net. The Leafs were about to miss the playoffs for a franchise-record third straight year, and interim GM Cliff Fletcher was trying (and failing) to kickstart a desperately needed rebuild by trading away Mats Sundin and the Muskoka Five. That summer, they’d hire Ron Wilson, sign Jeff Finger, and launch a GM search that dragged on for months. Eventually, Brian Burke would arrive, promising that he could turn the whole thing around quickly.
It was, to put it mildly, a miserable time to be a Maple Leafs fan. At one point, I set out to write a multi-part series to answer the question: Is this the worst it’s ever been? The answer: Yes it was. I’d lived through Harold Ballard, Kerry Fraser, “draft schmaft” and Rask-for-Raycroft, but there had never been a worse time to be a Leafs fan.
Fast-forward almost a decade later, and here we are. The Leafs still haven’t won a playoff round. They’ve only made it once, and that didn’t end well. Other teams have built and rebuilt and won it all and crashed and burned, and there’s Toronto, still nestled away in the bottom third of the standings, as always.
All of which makes it feel a little odd to get to write this: We’re in the middle of a damn fun year to be a Leafs fan.
In a special Canada Day edition of the Friday Grab Bag:
- Steven Stamkos snubs your favorite team
- Jim Benning gets caught tampering
- An obscure player who was traded straight up for a Hall of Famer in his prime
- The week's three comedy stars
- And we all sing along proudly with the new Canadian national anthem
In the Friday grab bag:
- The loser point doesn't make playoff races closer; this year, it ruined one
- Who should be Canada's Team for the playoffs?
- Four players have captained three NHL teams: Gretzky, Messier, Pronger and this week's obscure player
- The three comedy stars, featuring the return of a legend
- And a YouTube breakdown of the time the 1987-88 season came down to its final seconds
In the Friday grab bag:
- The NHL's unforgivable World Cup mistake
- How to save the trade deadline
- The week's three comedy stars
- A classic Canada Cup clip
- and more...
The NHL draft was held over the weekend in Philadelphia, a fact that would have been hard to miss if you were a hockey fan in the city. If the bright orange draft-themed banners that seemed to have been hung on every square inch of available space didn’t tip you off, the steady stream of hockey personalities who took over much of the downtown area would have.
They were everywhere. There’s Gary Bettman wandering by a hotel. There’s David Poile chilling out on a patio. There’s some random teenager who you don’t recognize, but his neck is the width of your chest so he’s clearly going in the first round. At some point, your brain switches over to assuming that everyone in the city is secretly an NHL employee, and you start eavesdropping on random conversations in hopes of overhearing some top-secret info. (One guy even managed to get this strategy to work.)
The opening round was held Friday night, just 24 hours after the NBA held its draft in New York City. The leagues share some common traits when it’s time to divvy up the next generation of players, but the NHL draft is distinct in several notable ways. For one, there’s no guarantee a Canadian will be picked first overall. More important, the teams themselves play a much more prominent role in the NHL draft than in any other league. The front offices and scouting staffs fill up the draft floor, with GMs (or other team personnel) announcing the first-round picks themselves. That creates a fun dynamic and offers up plenty of opportunities for the host team’s crowd to play a role. Did I mention this year’s draft was in Philadelphia? Yeah, Flyers fans were going to make themselves heard.
That became clear almost immediately, before the draft had even officially begun. Minutes before the first pick, the NHL attempted to run through a quick roll call, giving each team the chance to confirm its presence and inform the league of who’d be making the picks. It’s supposed to be a formality. Flyers fans had other ideas, quickly deciding to greet the announcement of each team with loud “SUCKS” chants. They weren’t equally distributed — the Kings actually got some tepid applause and the Penguins, naturally, got it worst of all — but it set the tone for what was to come.
(And by the way … why does the NHL have a pre-draft roll call? I get that you need to know who’s authorized to make each team’s picks, but that seems like something that could be handled with an email. Are they concerned that the Carolina Hurricanes might not show up? Do the Dallas Stars sometimes wander in late to these things? Did the Winnipeg Jets’ mom forget to let the league know about their dentist appointment? It’s very confusing.)
After warming up, the Philly crowd got down to the real order of business: mercilessly booing Bettman every time he got near the lectern. The crowd gave it to him with both barrels, and they didn’t even let up when he tried one of his now-traditional cheesy jokes (“I thought this was the city of Brotherly Love?”). It was a strong performance, but not a perfect one, because they still let themselves get suckered in by the now-traditional sight of GMs thanking the host city for its hospitality. The supposedly hard-nosed Flyers fans went for it every time, rewarding the gambit with cheers, which resulted in more and more teams pulling it out as the night went on. You are only encouraging them, Philadelphia. If you don’t boo them for transparently sucking up to you, how will they ever learn?
Once the GMs managed to make their picks, the first round played out largely as expected. The Panthers held on to the first overall pick despite spending the week teasing the hockey world with talk of trading down. They chose Aaron Ekblad, a well-rounded defenseman who’d emerged as the consensus top player on most draft boards.
Ekblad was followed by the “big three” centers: Sam Reinhart (to Buffalo), Leon Draisaitl (to Edmonton), and Samuel Bennett (to Calgary). That set the tone for a first round that was dominated by forwards, with 25 of 30 picks being used on centers or wingers. The other five picks were defensemen; no goalie was taken until Saturday, when a mini-run on the position opened the second round.
Mix in a disappointing lack of trades — there were a few, which we’ll get to in a second, but nowhere near the parade of blockbusters we’d been hoping for — and you had a first round that didn’t offer up much in the way of shockers. That may explain why the fans were as loud as they were; once they realized the league’s GMs were planning on business as usual, the Flyers faithful decided to make their own fun.
Puck Soup is a podcast featuring me and Ryan Lambert. We release one free episode each week during the season, plus mailbags and other bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers.
"Biscuits" was the Vice Sports hockey podcast, hosted by DGB and Dave Lozo. It ran for two seasons; the final episode was in July, 2018. You can find the archives below:
