PLAYOFF HEAT IS TRULY ON FOR LEAFS BRASS
HEADS COULD ROLL IN FRONT OFFICE, BEHIND BENCH IF TEAM MAKES ANOTHER QUICK POST-SEASON EXIT
There’s an understated pressure around the Toronto Maple Leafs like nothing felt before. This is Brendan Shanahan’s 10th season as club president. He needs a playoff run.
This is Sheldon Keefe’s fifth season as coach. He needs a playoff run.
This is Keith Pelley’s first weeks as CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. He wants a playoff run. And who knows how many years Larry Tanenbaum has left as chair of the company and governor of the Leafs? He needs a playoff run, too.
The Leafs are down 1-0 in their best-of-seven opening playoff series after the Bruins’ easy 5-1 victory Saturday night in Boston.
It won’t be an upset if the Leafs lose the opening round to the Boston Bruins. Boston was ahead of them all season long.
But what will matter is how they play, not just how many games they win.
AROUND THE NHL
Tampa coach Jon Cooper on the consecutive series against the Leafs the last two seasons: “They outplayed us and we won. We outplayed them and they won.” ... Not sure there will be many firstround upsets in the NHL playoffs but if it’s considered an upset, I’ll take Colorado over Winnipeg. The rest, I like the favourites. Rangers over Washington; Florida over Tampa Bay; Boston over Toronto; Carolina over Islanders. The other West series: Dallas over Vegas; Edmonton over Los Angeles again; Vancouver over Nashville . ... Rarely am I better than 5-3 with Round 1 predictions, so an upset is coming from somewhere. ... Six years ago, Shanahan made a tough decision. He chose Kyle Dubas over sitting general manager Lou Lamoriello. Since that time, Dubas, now the GM in Pittsburgh, has guided his team to 37 post-season games, all in Toronto. And since that time, Lamoriello has guided the Islanders to 55 playoff games, a number that could reach 60 by next week sometime. Wonder if Shanahan would make the same decision again . ...
Pittsburgh didn’t make the playoffs with Sidney Crosby having an absolutely brilliant season. How do they make it in the future when Crosby’s play eventually begins to decline. Next year is his 20th season . ... When Auston Matthews failed to score his 70th goal, one piece of hockey symmetry disappeared. The last time an NHL player scored 70 was 1993, which happened to be the same year a Canadian team last won the Stanley Cup. Which means, not this year folks in Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Edmonton.
HEAR AND THERE
Sorry if I’m not overly emotional about the move of the Arizona Coyotes to Salt Lake City. This move is way overdue — no matter where they’re going. The Coyotes have been a disaster for better than two decades.
I covered one of their bankruptcies years ago. The team has had a series of inept or underfunded owners, lousy teams, losing piles of money, not always paying bills, running teams on the cheap and with next to no success. Yes, the Phoenix area is terrific, especially in winter, which is why so many former NHL players and executives live there now.
But in all of commissioner Gary Bettman’s stubborn attempts to keep the team in Arizona, he never found a capable owner with deep pockets and an arena plan that made any long-term sense. If the NHL returns to Arizona, it can’t be under the ownership of Alex Meruelo. Bettman, after all these years, needs to find someone else to throw good money away . ... Loud mouth Brian Burke complained that the move to Salt Lake City was a step backward for the NHL, moving from a huge market to a small one. The small market Utah Jazz, by the way, drew 18,206 fans a game this season in the NBA while the huge market Phoenix Suns drew 17,071. The Coyotes average attendance in their last season in Arizona: 4,600 a game . ...
Why won’t Utah have a name and logo for its first season? It’s April. The season starts in October. Surely, a name, a logo and a jersey is more than possible by then. The best thing about the Seattle Kraken through three NHL seasons: their jersey . ... And please don’t hire whoever came up with these San Diego Padres uniforms that look like clown costumes . ...
If WWE’S Jey Uso is making the call on the new name of the franchise, he’d want it called the Utah Yeets. Me? I like the idea of Utah Ice or Utah Snow. ... Marc-andre Fleury has signed up for another season in Minnesota and I wonder if that makes him a possibility to be one of the Canadian goaltender choices for Team Canada for the Four Nations tournament next winter. And if not him, who? ...
There are 16 teams in the
Stanley Cup playoffs, three of them are starting Canadians in goal — Edmonton, Los Angeles and Vegas. Of the other 13 starters, six are Russians and five Americans . ... The Raptors are truly an amazing franchise with an amazing fan base. The club averaged 19,515 to watch this dreadful team play and then turned around and raised ticket prices, which is the ultimate slap in the face to its paying customers. And the fans, they’ll all be back next year.
SCENE AND HEARD
The Ottawa Senators, New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres all desperately need a head coach. Will any of them have the stones or the money to hire the best coach available, Joel Quenneville? ... One of the great pleasures in life: Watching Chris Bassitt’s face when he pitches. His expressions give you a play by play on their own. He’s part pitcher, part thespian on the mound . ... So this is the Daulton Varsho the Jays traded Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. for? It’s still a bad trade, will always be a bad trade, but at least this version of Varsho is more than just a defensive whiz . ... Maybe the best use of money by the Blue Jays in years — five years and US$32 million for Cuban pitcher Yariel Rodriguez . ... If you know who is going to pitch which day in the World Series, why the mystery behind who is starting in goal for a playoff game, or any game for that matter? It’s one of many dumb traditions in hockey . ...
In just a matter of days, John Sterling, Verne Lundquist, Jack Edwards and Jeff Rimer all announced their retirements. It’s an unusual collection of Mount Rushmore type broadcasters and a future void, nonetheless . ... My NHL award winners: Hart, Nathan Mackinnon; Norris, Quinn Hughes; Selke, Sasha Barkov; Lady Byng, Matthews; Vezina, Connor Hellebuyck; Jack Adams, Spencer Carbery.
My all-star teams: Mackinnon, Nikita Kucherov and Artemi Panarin up front followed by Matthews, David Pastrnak and Filip Forsberg. The defence: Hughes and Roman Josi; Makar and Miro Heiskanen; In goal, Hellebuyck and Sergei Bobrovsky . ... The worst feeling: Not finding a place for Panarin, Hellebuyck and Hughes on my Hart ballot . ...
A fascinating sidebar to the Vancouver-nashville series: It features the two best defenceman in the NHL this season, probably playing head to head . ... Never mind the “it’s early stuff ”: This is how bad the 3-16 Chicago White Sox are: They’ve been shut out seven times already this season.
AND ANOTHER THING
This is Caitlin Clark’s world; the rest of us just live in it. What’s she’s doing for women’s sport and the business of sport and herself is beyond mind boggling. She’s about to sign an eight-figure shoe deal with Nike and her popularity continues to be off the charts. Monday’s WNBA draft, an event nobody outside of family and friends used to watch, had almost twice the audience in America than the final round of the Masters. Nothing like this — not even close — has ever happened before in women’s sports . ...
Unrelated, and now in the big-time shoe business himself is Hamilton’s Shai Gilgeous-alexander, who signed a huge deal with Converse.
Gilgeous-alexander may not win the most valuable player award in the NBA this season, but he’s certainly in the running . ...
What a scene at the Bell Centre on Saturday afternoon for the PWHL game between Toronto and Montreal. An hour before the game, the place was already electric. The number of young female fans in attendance was heartening. ... Shouldn’t somebody be tracking down former Raptor Jontay Porter to get his side of the suspended for life story? And does he have a side? ... And could the week have gone any worse for the Porter family? Jontay was kicked out of the NBA. Younger brother Coban Porter was sentenced to six years in prison for killing a woman with his car while admittedly driving drunk . ...
Got thinking about this when former NHL referee Wally Harris died the other day. Time was, I knew just about every NHL ref by name and face. So many of us did. We used to travel with them. We used to eat in the same coffee shops or have the occasional drink in a lobby bar. I knew Bryan Lewis and Andy Van Hellemond and Denis Morel and Kerry Fraser and Dave Newell and Bruce Hood and Wally and Bill Mccreary and a whole slew of linesmen. The NHL put out its list of 22 playoff referees; I kind of knew two of them. I miss the days when NHL refs were allowed to have personalities and when they occasionally socialized with those who wrote about the game . ... I still think it sucks that France is the host country for the Summer Olympics and Joel Embiid pulled the front-runner thing and chose to play for Team USA instead.