Who’s the best player in the NHL right now? What about the top five?
Connor McDavid is the most talented player in the world. You could argue that Nathan MacKinnon is best player this season, which is a slightly different category. Leon Draisaitl is right behind those two. Kirill Kaprizov has the biggest contract, and he’s mostly lived up to it so far. On the blueline, the eternal Cale Makar vs. Quinn Hughes debate rages on. And in goal, Connor Hellebuyck is the reigning Vezina winner, not to mention the MVP. Of course, all those guys are established veterans, but if you were building a team right now you might use your top pick on Connor Bedard or Macklin Celebrini instead.
Do you notice something odd about that paragraph?
It’s all Western Conference guys. Every one of them. And we didn’t even mention names like Jack Eichel, or Mikko Rantanen, or Leo Carlsson. The West is stacked. When you really think about it, there’s an embarrassment of riches stuffed into one conference.
And then you start to wonder: Wait, who is the best player in the East? And where would that player even rank leaguewide?
This came up last week on Puck Soup, where my beloved co-host Ryan Lambert had recently guested on a Canucks pod. They’d asked a seemingly simple question: If Quinn Hughes had gone to the Devils like we all expected, would he have instantly become the East’s best player?
We agreed that yeah, he probably would have. But instead, he stayed in the West, since that’s apparently where all the brightest stars have to be.
On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- Has this been a great deadline, or just a busy one?
- Thoughts on some of the recent deals, including Tyler Bertuzzi to Boston
- The David Pastrnak news breaks as ww're recording
- Jesse Granger on whether the Golden Knights will trade for Jonathan Quick
- A weird Arizona Coyotes stat, remembering the 1996 Blues, a great magic draft pick idea 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)
On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- What the hell is happening in Vancouver?
- A few new extensions, but no David Pastrnak yet
- Seattle looks like a contender... maybe
- Ivan Provorov sends an anti-LGBT message
- The Avalanche could miss the playoffs
- Jack Adams candidates, and lots more...
One of my pet theories this year was that it would be a season of extremes. The loaded top of the 2023 draft, and the predictable tank war it would inspire, would clog the bottom of the standings with some of the worst records in recent history. And that would open the door to the league’s good teams to rack up even more points than usual, thanks to a steady stream of matchups with teams that weren’t even trying. We’d end up with a bunch of 110-plus point teams and a bunch of awful ones, and not much left in the mushy middle.
There’s still time for things to evolve that way. But so far, we’re not seeing that separation. While we’re seeing a clear group of six very bad teams at the bottom and almost as many very good ones, the middle is as mushy as ever. At one point on Saturday afternoon, there were six teams sitting at exactly .500. There’s a lot of mediocrity out there.
OK, let’s embrace that. Which of the NHL’s mediocre teams has been the most mediocre so far?
Heading into last night’s action, there had been 762 skaters and 74 goalies that had appeared in at least one NHL game this season. That’s well over 800 names, ranging from big stars to no-names, grizzled veterans to fresh-faced rookies, guys with personalities and lots who never say a word, and everything in between.
Can we find just ten that everyone likes?
Good luck. Hockey fans are notoriously difficult to please, which is a nice way of saying we’re all crusty jerks who are simmering with rage at all times, all carrying a long list of players we’re sworn to never forgive for some sin we don’t even remember. You like your own team, sometimes, but that’s about it. Maybe there’s one or two guys on other teams that you respect, or even like.
But ten? Forget it.
Well, I love a challenge. The last time I did this was back in 2019, and the results were mixed. I managed to come up with a few names that most of you seemed to agree on, including Henrik Lundqvist and Patrick Marleau. Both of those guys have rudely retired, so I can’t use them again. In fact, I’m going to go one further: This time around, I can’t use anyone who made the cut back in 2019. That means still-active names like Patrice Bergeron, Marc-Andre Fleury and Phil Kessel are off the table too. This is going to impossible.
That’s never stopped me before, so let’s do this. Ten active players, ten reasons why we should all like them, and ten exceptions that prove the rule.
On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- We pour one out for the Oilers, the year's most entertaining team
- What's next for Edmonton, and is this an outlier?
- Can anyone beat the Avs? Yes. Will they? To be determined.
- How we see the Rangers/Lightning series
- The Bruins fire Bruce Cassidy, and might trade David Pastrnak
- We're confused by the odds for each coaching vacancy
- And more...
We’re almost done with February, the first full month of this very weird season, and as the old saying goes, we’re living in interesting times. We learned that sunshine is our enemy, had a player clear waivers after getting kicked off his team for fighting his own goalie, crowned the Montreal Canadiens as inevitable Stanley Cup champions, found out that the Coyotes are a train wreck, laughed at the Leafs blowing a 5-1 lead, crowned the Montreal Canadiens as the worst team ever, and welcomed Brian Burke back to hockey operations. Other than that, pretty dull. Let’s see what was on your minds as we open up the monthly mailbag.
Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.
Combining his willingness to participate in advertising campaigns, his off-ice personality, and his on-ice performance, is David Pastrnak the most entertaining player in the NHL? The most marketable? – David R.
He has to be close, right? The whole Lake Tahoe thing was just so great, especially his postgame interview. He’s all sorts of fun to watch, and he even gets a nice boost from the contrast of having linemates like Patrice Bergeron (cool but boring) and Brad Marchand (interesting but chaotic-evil). David Pastrnak as the new face of the league? I could be talked into this.
On the other hand, his commercial work has been, um, uneven. Let’s have him take some acting workshops to improve on that. Preferably instead of participating in any potential Leafs/Bruins series.
You get to change the shape of the puck to create more chaos on the ice and confusion for goalies. How do you go about this and picking the shape? Change shapes between periods? – Sean
This is the first time in my adult life that I wish I’d paid attention in physics class.
The wonderful thing about the NHL playoffs is that you never know what you’re going to get. Every time you sit down in front of your TV to watch a game, the possibilities feel endless. The postseason is full of wild upsets, crazy bounces, unexpected heroes and goats and sudden death chaos. It can start to feel random, maybe even too random, but it’s never predictable.
And then comes the commercial break. And you know exactly what you’re going to get.
That’s because the NHL’s sponsors apparently make roughly a dozen new commercials in any given year, and then play them on an endless loop during the playoffs. It’s the same ads, several times a night. And they’re almost always terrible.
You know this. But here’s something that might not have occurred to you: The ads that play over and over again during hockey in Canada and the United States are different.
Not entirely different; there’s a handful of crossovers. (What’s up, Martin Brodeur?) But for the most part, Americans and Canadians are seeing different commercials. And that means that when you go online to complain about that horrible ad you just saw for the 20th time, most of your fellow fans across the border have no idea what you’re talking about.
I wanted to fix this. So I found an American volunteer, Sean Gentille, who agreed to watch three of my least favorite Canadian hockey ads. He’s also got three annoying American ones to show me. We’ll be seeing each of the ads for the very first time, and reacting in real-time for your amusement. It should be fun. Or maybe the exact opposite of fun. Probably that.
Y’all ready for this?
Pregame strategy
McIndoe: My first challenge was narrowing down the list to three, which involved some heartbreaking late cuts. Sorry, incredibly yellow no-name brand amateurs. Pack your stuff, old lady who dances about laundry freshener. You too, toe fungus guy, motivational Sportsnet dude and all those weirdos fantasizing about cars.
Instead, I’ve made the strategic decision to ease in Sean with a leadoff ad that isn’t completely awful, and that features a celebrity guest star he’ll recognize. Lull him into a false sense of security. Then wham, I’m going to hit him with a one-two punch that should ruin his day.
Also, I’m both deeply excited and vaguely terrified to finally understand all your taxidermy/tax attorney jokes.
Gentille: My top three was cast in cement by the end of the play-in round, but I still floated the question on Twitter to see if I was missing something obvious. All apologies to John Stamos, the Liberty Mutual “LiMu Emu” and the Geico “Aunts Infestation,” but nothing changed.
Folks, I held the hammer in this one. Nobody denies this. Idina Menzel herself knows it to be true. The toughest choice was trying to figure it out which respective Dunkin’ and Subway ads would round out my lineup.
Commercial No. 1
McIndoe: Let’s do this. Do you want to kick or receive?
Gentille: Receive, baby.
McIndoe: OK. I’m going to start you out with one that I don’t think is actually all that bad. But it airs roughly 700 times during every game, so take it in that context.
McIndoe: Rabbity babbity boo!
Gentille: So what we’ve got here is a famous person engaged in an annoying act? One that sort of winks and says, “Yep, we know this is annoying. That’s the conceit. Isn’t that funny? The juxtaposition of a vaguely charming celebrity, doing something awful that’ll burrow into your brain and make your life a little worse?”
That’s part of American and Canada’s shared culture, I guess. You’re going to get your own taste here shortly — and buddy, it’s a lot worse.
McIndoe: I can’t wait.
For background, this ad is part of an ongoing series that’s been running for years, starring Jon Hamm and, um, Skinny Young Jon Hamm. I don’t think it’s ever been firmly established what the relationship is supposed to be, but I think the kid is maybe his assistant and most of the ads revolve around Hamm subjecting him to some low-level psychological abuse.
Gentille: I’m assuming SkipTheDishes is a meal-delivery service. Do you guys not have Postmates or DoorDash?
McIndoe: I want to say no, but it’s possible that we have them and I just don’t realize it because they never hired Jon Hamm and bought up all the advertising slots on Hockey Night in Canada.
Gentille: All this does is open the door for a U.S. Grubhub ad starring Jim from The Office. I’m surprised it doesn’t already exist. Honestly, though, I’m kind of impressed by the guts this takes from the ad agency. If we were doing a draft of The Most Annoying Professions, “auctioneer” would be a lottery pick. And that’s what they chose — proudly, one would assume — to feature here. Next up: Jon Hamm in character as a mime. (I don’t like mimes.)
McIndoe: Rabbity babbity boo!
I plan to keep doing that constantly, by the way. I want you to have to live in my world for a bit.
Gentille: SEANNY SEANNY LOOK AT HIM GO WITH A FRESH CUP OF JOE.
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Mike Babcock firing, and his potential next stops, where the Leafs go from here
- Garnet Hathaway's three-game suspension for spitting
- Does the NHL need to change the rules after the scary Matt Calvert incident
- Some final thoughts on the Hall of Fame, including predictions for next year's class
- We play "Hell Yes or B.S." with the Islanders, Senators, and David Pastrnak's goal-scoring
- Baby Yoda
- And lots more...
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- John Tortorella is tired of the shootout and he's right
- John Carlson is good
- David Pastrnak is crazy good
- When is it OK to text after a big hit or a fight?
- Mikko Rantanen's leg is not supposed to bend that way
- A dumb Star Wars quiz that goes exactly as well for me as you'd think
We’re hours away from the first Game 7 of a Stanley Cup final in eight years. Are you pumped? I’m a little pumped. This is going to be fun.
So who’s going to win? I have no idea. Really, none at all. I could pretend that I do, but anyone who’s been following my predictions so far won’t be buying it for a second. And can you blame me? The 2019 playoffs have been total chaos. Anyone who tells you that they’ve got it all figured out now, with one game to go, is full of it. I’m not even going to try, because I’ve been trying to predict Game 7s for decades now and I’ve only ever been right once.
So no, I’m not going to be right. But could I get you to settle for half-right? I can come up with seven reasons why the Bruins are definitely going to win Game 7. I can also come up with seven more why the Blues are an absolute lock. If you’re an optimist, pick the team you like best and only read their entries. If you prefer feeling sick heading into a big game, only read the other team. Read all of them, and come away feeling just as confused as when you started. Or just wait until tomorrow, read the entries of the team that won, and then head to the comments to call me a genius.
Your call. There are no wrong answers here. Well, there are – seven out of 14, to be exact. But that’s a better batting average than I normally have, so let’s get to them.
The Bruins will win because: The first line is finally waking up.
The Patrice Bergeron/Brad Marchand/David Pastrnak line – and no, we’re not calling them the Perfection Line, knock that off – has been hit-and-miss for a lot of the postseason. They were broken up against Toronto, reunited, and certainly had their moments. But they never really rolled for long stretches the way we’ve seen in the past. It’s a credit to the rest of the Bruins forwards that they had the depth to keep winning in spite of their top line struggling.
For most of the final, it’s been the same story, with Brayden Schenn’s line winning the matchup. The Bergeron line’s struggles have been so noticeable that there’s been plenty of speculation that some or all of them may be playing through serious injuries.
But on Sunday, for the first time in the series, the Bergeron line looked dominant, while Schenn’s looked outclassed. That’s just about the best news you could get as a Bruins fan. Maybe they’ve made an adjustment, or maybe they’re healthy again, or maybe they’re just heating up. You don’t really care about the why right now. You just know that if the top line can dominate, every other matchup falls into place really nicely.
The Blues will win because: The stats tell us that Jordan Binnington can’t lose in this situation.
We’ve heard about it all postseason. Overall, Binnington’s playoff numbers aren’t all that great, and he’s had a few games in this series alone where he’s looked very ordinary. But after a loss, he gains some sort of weird superpowers where he becomes unbeatable.
In the playoffs, he’s 7-2 with a 1.83 GAA after a loss, which plays into the narrative that the kid has ice in his veins. And it is a narrative to some extent – every goalie who makes it deep into the playoffs has a good record after a loss, because the ones that don’t get eliminated early. But sometimes even a narrative can have value as long as everyone believes it. Under normal circumstances, a team heading into Game 7 with a young goalie who just got shelled in Game 6 might be worried. The Blues don’t have to be.
The Bruins will win because: The stats also tell us that Tuukka Rask can’t lose in this situation.
Wait, did you say Binnington is a 1.83 GAA in these types of games? Rask has that beat.
Tuukka Rask in an elimination game this postseason: 3-0, 1.33 GAA, .953 save pct (82 saves, 86 shots). Four goals allowed in 179.81 minutes.
Can both goalies be unbeatable in the same game? Huh. We may be here a while.
But while we’re on the subject of goaltending, let’s point out that Rask has been the better of the two, both in the series and in the playoffs. I’m not sure I’m willing to give him the Conn Smythe even in a losing cause, but there’s a case to be made. He’s been that good. The Blues have already survived having one goaltender stand on his head in a Game 7 against them, but I don’t like their odds if it happens again.
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Oh god we have to talk about expanded replay again don't we?
- The best way to react to a waved-off goal
- The week's three comedy stars introduce a new culinary term
- An obscure player who committed mid-game murder
- And a look back at the immediate aftermath of the craziest brawl in NHL history
In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- Lots of trade deadline talk
- Reacting to the Randy Carlyle firing
- Breaking down Ryan's latest feud with the Edmonton media
- David Pastrnak's mysterious late-night injury
- I try to explain how federal politics works in Canada to two confused Americans
- Some movies or something I don't know
- Plus an interview with Wild writer Michael Russo and lots more...
From time to time, readers will send me story ideas. Some are good, some not so much, but they’re always appreciated. Every now and then someone will come up with something that is just the right mix of weird and fun and it turns into something cool.
But by far, there’s one idea that gets suggested the most: What’s the best cap-compliant roster you could build using all of today’s contracts?
It’s a neat idea, and we’ve seen it done well in other sports. But it never quite works in the NHL, because you just wind up with a roster stacked with entry-level deals. In an era where players (especially forwards) peak so quickly, those first contracts often represent such outrageous bargains that they make the exercise too easy. Let me start with Auston Matthews, Mikko Rantanen, Patrik Laine, Elias Pettersson and Brayden Point all at $900,000 or so, and I can stack the rest of the roster with pretty much whoever I want. Heck, give them all the bonuses too, they’re still dirt cheap. There’s no challenge to it.
You could get around that by limiting how many entry-level deals you could use. But today, let’s try something a little more challenging. We’re going to see if we can make the best cap-compliant roster that we can by using just existing contracts. But instead of building that team for this year, we’re going to try to do it for 2021-22.
Why 2021-22? The first reason is that it’s three years away, which means we lose access to all of those entry-level deals. Matthews, Rantanen and friends will all be on their second deals and making just slightly more than they are right now and the Jack Hughes cohort isn’t in the league yet so we can’t use them either. Three years also has the benefit of not being so far away that we’re just guessing about who’ll still be good by then. And there are more players than you’d think who already have contracts that reach into the 2021-22 season – 165 as of today according to Cap Friendly, including many of the league’s best players.
The idea comes with a couple of hurdles. The first is that we’ll probably have a new CBA by 2021-22, meaning there’s a chance that the cap system or HRR split could work differently by then. And even if we assume that nothing important will change, we don’t actually know what the salary cap is going to be by then.
That second problem is easy enough to solve by just picking a number that seems reasonable. Let’s go with $90 million, which would represent an increase of just over $10 million from where we are right now. The cap went up $8.1 million over the last three years, so mix in a little inflation and $90 million seems about right for 2021-22.
That leaves us with 165 players to choose from and a $90 million cap to work with to put together a 2021-22 roster that fits under the cap and looks like a Cup contender. How hard could that be? Spoiler: Harder than you might think …
(All salary information in this piece comes from CapFriendly.com. Also, all values listed are a player’s cap hit; we don’t care about the actual dollars due on the contract.)
Goaltenders
They say that you should build from the net out, so we’ll follow that advice. But when we do, we run into our first problem almost immediately. Of those 165 players signed through 2022, only nine are goaltenders. And none of them look like major bargains.
When you think about it, that makes sense. There’s more supply than demand for goaltending these days, so teams aren’t making long-term commitments to guys unless they think they’re foundational pieces. Mix in deals like Henrik Lundqvist, Frederik Andersen and Tuukka Rask that all expire the year before our 2021-22 season, and it’s no surprise that the pickings are slim.
But it’s a problem for our roster because we’re going to be spending way more on goaltending than we’d like. Even if we went with the two most inexpensive options we can find, Ben Bishop and Roberto Luongo, we’re still paying over $10 million for a position where it’s often smart to go as cheap as possible. And even Luongo can’t realistically be a pick for three years down the road since he’ll be 42 years old by then.
Instead, we’ll hand the starting job to one of the few guys on the list who looks like he could be a bargain: Anaheim’s John Gibson at $6.4 million. He’s performing at a Vezina or even Hart Trophy level these days, and while that doesn’t guarantee anything about how he’ll be playing in three years (or even three weeks), we’ll take our chances.
The other option here would have been Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck at $6.166 million. He was great last year but has looked pretty ordinary this season. Hellebuyck should be fine, but I prefer Gibson enough to spend a few extra bucks. Ideally, we’d pick both guys, but $12.5 million will be too much to spend on goaltending, so we have to make a call here.
For the backup spot, we’ll go with Ben Bishop at $4.917 million, mainly because he’s the cheapest option available. Do I feel good about this pick? No, I do not – he’ll be turning 35 in 2021-22, and he’s a big guy who’s had hip problems. There’s a good chance he’s not an effective goaltender in three years’ time and we just wasted a big chunk of our cap on a guy who’ll be on LTIR or a buyout target. We’re two picks into this thing and I’m already angry.
But really, what other choice do we have? Carey Price at $10.5 million? No thanks. Cory Schneider at $6 million? Not a chance. Marc-Andre Fleury at $7 million? Maybe, but he’ll turn 37 during the 2021-22 season. Jonathan Quick ($5.8 million) and Martin Jones ($5.75 million) are at least worth considering, but we’re going to need every penny we can scrounge to fill out the rest of the roster.
That means it’s Gibson and Bishop, at a total cost of over $11 million. That’s pricey. Let’s see if we can claw back some of that space on the blueline.
Cap space spent so far: $11.317 million on two players, an average of $5.66 million each. We have $78.683 million left for 18 roster spots, an average of just over $4.37 million per player.
The Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins face off tonight in the only Game 7 showdown of the opening round. It’s been a roller-coaster series, one that started with a pair of blowouts and then transformed into a nail-biter, with a key suspension, a surprise injury and more than a few subplots along the way.
Now it comes down to one game, and you’re looking for a prediction. Well, we’ve got you covered. Here goes: One of these teams will win.
Oh, you were looking for something more specific. But here’s the thing: In the salary cap era NHL, any one game is pretty much a coin flip. A slightly weighted coin, maybe, but still a coin flip. Either one of these teams could win, by a lot or a little, and it wouldn’t come as much of a shock.
But that’s not what fans of either team are looking for, so here’s a compromise. Today, we’ll look at five reasons why Bruins are definitely going to win tonight. And we’ll also offer up five more reasons why the Maple Leafs are an absolute lock. Pick the ones you like best, and then ignore the others. Or even better, wait until the game is over and then come back and only read the ones from the winning team.
Either way, we’re guaranteed to be right. And also wrong. But mostly right.
The Bruins will win because: They’ve been the better team in the series
We’ll start with the simplest factor: Through six games, the Bruins have been the better team.
Not from start to finish, and not necessarily for every game. But overall, it’s fairly clear that the Bruins are outplaying the Maple Leafs. Pick any measure, from goals scored to shots to possession to expected goals, and the Bruins have the edge. It’s not always a big edge, and the Maple Leafs have certainly had their moments. But on balance, the Bruins have been better.
That may not mean much in a seventh game. Hockey isn’t fair, and we’ve seen plenty of series where the best team didn’t win, often in cases where the margin was much bigger than in this one. But if you’re trying to figure out who’s going to win a single game, the easiest question to ask is “Who’s been better so far?”
In this series, the answer is Boston.
The Maple Leafs will win because: They’re getting stronger as they go
The Bruins have been the better team in the series, sure. But that includes the first two games, which Boston dominated. Since then, things have been far more even. Granted, those first two wins count just as much as any others, but the trend in the series is clear – Toronto’s been getting better, while Boston peaked early.
That’s not to say that the scales have tipped in Toronto’s favour, because they haven’t – even in losing the last two, the Bruins controlled play for long stretches, and there hasn’t been a single game in this series where you could say the Leafs were clearly the better team. But they’re headed in the right direction, and the third period of Monday’s Game 6 was probably their best of the series so far.
Momentum is overrated in pro sports, and it would take one early Bruins goal to put the Leafs right back on their heels. But if you’re trying to predict what will happen tonight, a pair of blowouts from almost two weeks ago doesn’t tell you all that much. You want to let some recency bias creep in, and the gap between these two teams has been getting smaller as we go. If the trend continues, tonight might be the night that the pendulum finally swings over to the Leafs’ side.
The Maple Leafs went into game two against the Bruins on Saturday night looking to remind us that they belonged in the series. They left Boston looking like a team that won’t be back.
The Bruins did away with any suspense early in this one, jumping out to a 3–0 lead and chasing Frederik Andersen midway through the first period. They were up by four by the intermission, then cruised the rest of the way for a 7–3 win. Now the series heads back to Toronto for tonight’s Game 3, with the Bruins up 2-0 and looking to all but end it.
The big story so far has been the Bruins’ top line. Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak have dominated the series, racking up a combined five goals and 20 points while largely shutting down whoever the Maple Leafs threw at them. Pastrnak’s six-point Saturday night was the sort of breakout game that boosts a player into the top tier of the league’s young stars. Toronto has no answer for the trio, and Mike Babcock’s attempts to match lines on the road didn’t yield much beyond a pair of too-many-men penalties.
If you’re a Maple Leafs fan looking for good news, well, there isn’t a whole lot to be found. You could make the case that the team actually looked better on Saturday than they had in the opener, when they spent long stretches trapped in their own zone; the play wasn’t quite as tilted in Game 2, even if the scoreboard didn’t reflect it. That’s true enough, but hardly comforting – if you can up your game and still get your doors blown off with relative ease, you’re probably not long for a series.
So for now, the positive view is basically this: The series isn’t over, at least not yet, and we shouldn’t be closing the book on the Maple Leafs season until we’ve at least seen what they can do against the Bruins with home-ice advantage and the last line change.
And as many Leafs fans have pointed out, there’s at least some precedent for hope here. The team’s longest playoff run of the last half-century started off under similar circumstances, with the 1993 team getting blown out two straight in Detroit before returning home with a pair of close wins to get back in it. That team won the series in seven and played for another month, and to this day ranks as the most beloved Leafs team of the post-expansion era.
But while we’re the last to deny anyone a good dose of 1993 nostalgia, the Leafs’ current situation feels even more desperate than it did back then. That Leafs team had an edge in goaltending, while the current version is facing a former Vezina winner in Tuukka Rask. And those old Leafs weren’t missing one of their most important players to suspension, while Nazem Kadri will sit out both of the games in Toronto.
So yes, the odds are steep. They’re not quite zero yet, so we’ll hold off on the autopsy for now. But tonight is a must-win for the Maple Leafs, and if they get blown out again, expect things to get ugly in Toronto. We’ve got a gap in the schedule coming up, with Game 4 not going until Thursday, and an extra day of mulling over a 3–0 series deficit won’t play well in a town where negativity used to be the default setting. It’s been almost two years since this team has faced any significant criticism, so there’s plenty of ammo stored up. How high can the panic level get if it becomes clear that one of the best teams in the franchise’s modern history still isn’t anywhere near good enough?
From a Toronto perspective, it would be better not to find out. Other fan bases may already be reaching for the popcorn. Either way, a win in Game 3 switches up the narrative, and might set us up for the long series most of us were expecting. But that won’t happen unless the Maple Leafs can elevate their game enough to look like they belong on the same ice as the Bruins. As the first two games have shown us, they’ve got a long way to go.
Road to the Cup
The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a Stanley Cup.
5. Vegas Golden Knights: They just keep finding a way, and became the first team to reach the three-win mark last night.
4. Winnipeg Jets: So was last night a wobble, or something else? More on them down below.
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:
