Happy New Year!

Simply put, it was a very spicy first edition of Leafs Morning Take for 2025 as Jay Rosehill made his first post-Holiday appearance. Living up to the billing, the episode was filled with a ton of hot takes, and honestly, we didn’t waste much time getting to them. Firstly, we dissected the World Juniors and Canada’s turbulent start. They can’t score and they can’t stay out of the box. That’s a tough recipe for potential success.

Naturally, the conversation shifted to our beloved Maple Leafs. To set the scene, we were just talking about all the drama in Vancouver before I polled Rosey with an absolute bomb of a question: Would you trade Morgan Rielly for J.T. Miller? Any way you slice it, it’s a fascinating debate. Rielly’s had another tough season and Miller – due to his ongoing rift with fellow star Elias Pettersson – seems to be on the outs in Vancouver. Hmm.

After that, we got into the third meeting with the Islanders in 12 days for a bit. Once again, Auston Matthews will miss his sixth straight game. That said, he was on the ice with the team for the morning skate, so that’s good. Right? Meantime, we did discuss the bottom-six and how some of the depth players have been producing lately. We’ll take it. For what it’s worth, it looks like it will be Joseph Woll taking on Ilya Sorokin once again. Under?

Then, we got to our Leafs themed New Year’s Resolutions. There was a lot. Atop the list was probably health —namely Matthews. If the Leafs are finally going to climb the summit this season, they will undoubtedly need their captain. We also had score more, fix the expletive power play, and acquire a centre. It was a fun back and forth.

To wrap, we discussed the list of names that are now eligible to be extended as of January 1^st. The list for Toronto includes Steven Lorentz, Max Pacioretty, Connor Dewar, Phil Myers, Jani Hakanpaa, and Matt Murray. While some of these guys deserve a call at the very least, we both agreed that there shouldn’t be any rush to ink any of these guys to new contracts. Let things play out!

We’ll be back on Friday at 11 AM ET. Join us as we recap Leafs/Islanders plus look ahead to Toronto’s back-to-back this weekend on home ice with Boston and Philadelphia, respectively.

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If you haven’t done so already, be sure to get your payments in for the first EVER TLN Nation Vacation. Join us from Thursday, March 20^th to Sunday, March 23^rd as we take our talents to Music City to watch Toronto play Nashville. As part of the unique experience, we will also be offering up some podcast recordings at Love & Exile Winery & Bar in East Nashville. BOOK TODAY!!