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Toronto Maple Leafs: Goals, Assists, and Penalties

By John |
Apr 2, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs center William Nylander (39) skates away after assisting on a goal scored by center Colin Greening (38) in the second period against the Detroit Red Wings at Air Canada Centre. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 2, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs center William Nylander (39) skates away after assisting on a goal scored by center Colin Greening (38) in the second period against the Detroit Red Wings at Air Canada Centre. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

Each Monday I post a new “Goals, Assists, and Penalties” where I give you my two cents on the weeks news around the NHL and Toronto Maple Leafs. I break it down into Goals (positive news), Assists (generally positive news or something is lacking, and Penalties (negative news). These are purely my subjective opinions.

Goal: Can’t wait to watch Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Auston Matthews play in the World Cup. We will immediately get to see how he stacks up to the likes of Eichel and McDavid.

Goal: Mark Hunter getting a title bump to Assistant General Manager. Always a good thing when you can make someone feel appreciated more.

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Creates loyalty. Nothing lossed, much gained.

Penalty: How this years World Cup is organized into a North American team of 23 and under. Instead, how about two team Canada’s. Who is going to be cheering for team North America when they face Team USA or Team Canada? Nobody.  At best you will get people like myself cheering for Morgan Reilly and Auston Matthews while cheering for Team Canada or Team USA to win.

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Goal: Signing Jhonas Enroth to a one-year deal worth $775,000. I can’t think of a better back-up than Enroth. Very happy. Andersen/Enroth is a much more reliable number 1 and 2 than Bernier/Reimer was a 1A and 1B. Expect our goalies to steal us a couple games this season.

Assist: “Desert Knights” seems to be the name with the greatest likelihood to be placed on the jersey of the new NHL team in 2017-18 season. Las Vegas Desert Knights. Is it just me or does that sound more like a euphemism for a hot night than it does a hockey team. “Man it’s hot out here tonight, it’s like a desert night.”

Goal: Toronto Maple Leafs will once again be able to trade rental players for picks and prospects. Brooks Laich, Colin Greening, Milan Michalek, Matt Hunwick, and Roman Polak could all be traded for assets likely without much fuss from Leaf Nation complaining they are ruining any chance of making the playoffs (assuming, probably incorrectly so, that they Leafs would be close to making the playoffs come trade deadline).

Goal: The Coyotes hiring Dawn Braid, the first full-time female coach to an NHL team.

Penalty: The NHL was late to the party. Both the NBA and NFL have already broken this glass ceiling. The NHL isn’t seeming as progressive as I once thought it might have been (relative to other major leagues).

Goal: ESPN ranked the Maple Leafs depth/prospects number one in the NHL.

“Toronto has the best farm system in the NHL and it isn’t close. Based on my prospect definitions, there are zero reasonable arguments for anyone to even be in the same conversation.”

Enjoy it now because once Nylander, Marner, and Matthews are no longer prospects, the ranking will take a big drop. Not a bad problem to have, though.

Assist: Brandon Prust signs a PTO with the Maple Leafs. Not really sure why.

Penalty: How we have less of a feeling of what the plan is for the Maple Leafs than we did a year ago. After the 2015 draft and trades like a 4th rounder for Marincin, we knew the Leafs were going with skill and analytics.

This was after years of size and grit and strength that comes with a Brian Burke team.  This time last year we knew they were going for young and skilled and size wasn’t important. But after this years draft where most of the guys had size, and some seemed to be picked based mostly on size (Middleton, and Keaton), and the 4 year (!) signing of Matt Martin, that thinking has mostly taken a back seat recently.

I am less certain about what the game plan is than this time last year. Is this Lamoriello’s way of putting his fingerprint on the team? Would they have done the same had it continued to be a decision by committee? Who knows.

Next: Top remaining UFA's (1-5)

That’s all speculation, at best. But let me speculate…Leaf fans will have less patience for a crap team and missing the playoffs if they have a better idea of how the team will be built. For now, we have Auston Matthews to distract us from the fact that we know less now than before.

Under Review: Will the NHL be in the 2018 Olympics? Do I care? Probably not.

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