Late last night my esteemed colleague in blogging Steve Dangle asked a question that’s been on the mind of Leafs’ fans all summer, and for most of the past eight years: What is going on? Steve speculated that the Leafs are working furiously behind the scenes to pull off a blockbuster deal for either a…
Alright, work with me here… This isn’t a trade rumour. This isn’t me having a “sources say” or a #CONFIRMED moment. This is just a theory I have about the Leafs’ plans heading into 2012-13. Leafs fans have been uneasily waiting this summer while the team has done very little to a roster that fell…
It’s summer but there’s still lots of hockey to talk about. Shane Doan is the league’s foremost free agent and is rumoured to be going just about everywhere. In Edmonton, Nail Yakupov is now under contract and discussions on the new downtown arena are ongoing. Allan Mitchell (better known as Lowetide) talks about all this…
In reading Steve’s post yesterday, I came away thinking, “oh, right, Matt Lombardi is another natural centreman that the team doesn’t really have a use for”. I thought the original trade for Lombardi, which also brought Cody Franson to the Maple Leafs while getting rid of Brett Lebda, worked out. You take on two years…
No, I mean besides anyone who has been traded to Columbus. Fans are often quick to dismiss a player’s role on a team, and suggest that the player be sent to an AHL affiliate in order to free the NHL team of the cap hit. Fans of teams in larger markets are assuredly the biggest…
The Toronto Maple Leafs traded François Beauchemin on February 9, 2011. Since that trade, the Leafs have added among NHL defencemen: Jake Gardiner John-Michael Liles Cody Franson I’ve waged a miniature war against the minutes that Jake Gardiner played last season. I don’t think he’s good enough to hold down a Top Four spot on…
It’s late July, and I’m a very bored hockey nut. Today I did what I always do around this time of year: Bust out a pencil and try to figure out what the Leafs’ opening night lineup is going to be. I am now thoroughly confused. Unless I’m missing something, or unless the Leafs still…
In this week’s podcast, Cam Charron, Danny Gray, and I chat about the recent Shea Weber situation, the Rick Nash deal, and get into the likelihood of the NHLPA being back to work this October. After a while, things degenerate into ripping the Blue Jackets, and comparing them to terrible Futurama situations. You should…
I really love being a Hockey Dad. Since I didn’t play hockey as a kid, I relish the experiences of life at the rink as I watch my oldest daughter plays her favourite sport (and mine). There are some crazy hours and early mornings and there can be a lot of driving, but it’s…
So where on earth do the Columbus Blue Jackets go from here? Why, it seems like only a year ago we were looking at the prospects of a new future in Columbus. The team were spending money on good players. They got James Wisniewski and Radek Martinek, two solid defencemen, along with Vinny Prospal, to…
I might need to preface everything I say about Jake Gardiner thusly: I think he’s a talented, exciting defenceman who will be a good Top Four option in the NHL one day. The other thing I need to say is that it just won’t be now. Young defencemen, particularly those who score a few pretty…
And so Rick Nash will be a New York Ranger next season. We’ve known for quite some time, probably, that Nash would go there and not to, say, Toronto, but a lot of minds in the Greater Toronto Area may have needed the closure. Not sharp minds, but the way that things have panned out…
