So you’ve read the title and you’ve decided to be angry. That’s okay, you are a user of the internet after all. It’s to be expected. But allow me to take the edge off your fury before I dampen your hopes: The Leafs are still an excellent team The Leafs will make the playoffs and…
Leafs legend Alexander Mogilny has been eligible for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame since 2009, but every June comes and goes without the “Call to the Hall”. Some of this is justified: simply better players have become eligible over the years, which has bumped him down the order. But for Mogilny to go…
What is it they say about unstoppable forces and immovable objects? The round one matchup between the Maple Leafs and Lightning is one between two dominant even-strength teams who tend to control their games at 5v5. Both teams ended the season with results above 50% in advanced metrics like Shot Attempt Share (CF%), Unblocked Shot…
Leafs Nation has been going back and forth over the last few weeks about the pros and cons of playing the Tampa Bay Lightning or Boston Bruins in the first round of the NHL playoffs, but the one area where you could say the Lightning look scarier than the Bruins, even if the numbers from…
Having clinched a playoff spot and with home-ice advantage within grasp, the Maple Leafs are now firmly into “don’t get injured” territory as the season runs out. However, there are still things left to play for, and while individual accomplishments have taken a back seat to team ones this season with the Leafs hyper-focused on…
Welcome to Civil Discourse, an article series where two TLN writers discuss a topic of interest rationally without resorting to personal insults. So basically the anti-Twitter. Mark Norman I think we can safely say this is a nice problem to have: the Leafs have too many good defencemen. With less than 15 games left to go…
In this monthly Maple Leafs Milestone Watch column, we’ll be recapping the milestones of the previous month and setting up which milestones are likely (or even farfetched) to occur in the upcoming month. Last Month Notable milestones hit last month: Mitch Marner – 400 NHL/Leafs GP Tonight marks Mitch Marner's 400th career #NHL game. His 414…
Lost in the outrage over yet another officiating debacle in last week’s game against the Arizona Coyotes, when a missed holding the stick infraction by Jakob Chychrun against Auston Matthews directly resulted in a Maple Leafs overtime loss, was an appreciation for Chychrun’s gamesmanship. Despite the negative outcome for the Leafs, you have to hand…
In this monthly Maple Leafs Milestone Watch column, we’ll be recapping the milestones of the previous month and setting up which milestones are likely (or even farfetched) to occur in the upcoming month. Last Month Notable milestones hit last month: William Nylander – 400 NHL/Leafs GP Nylander got this one out of the way early, on…
Going into this season, it felt like the Leafs had their most solid goaltending tandem of the Auston Matthews era, with Jack Campbell coming off a brilliant 2020-21 campaign and Petr Mrazek signed to a reasonable $3.8M x 3 year deal over the summer. The plan was for the two to share the crease until…
It feels like every couple of days we are graced with the publishing of another out-of-touch sports article from a member of the old guard of Toronto’s sports media. At this point, the lack of quality insight emanating from the sports pages of Toronto’s once-relevant newspapers comes as no surprise: it seems as though many…
In this monthly Maple Leafs Milestone Watch column, we’ll be recapping the milestones of the previous month and setting up which milestones are likely (or even farfetched) to occur in the upcoming month. Last Month January was not nearly as disrupted by COVID as December was, with the Leafs only having a couple of games rescheduled…
