The Toronto Maple Leafs will always be found in the rumor mill.
The fact of the matter is that the Toronto Maple Leafs have a lot of decisions to make in the upcoming months.
That being said, there are a few different topics that are kind of up in the air right now, so it’s time to call fact or fiction on them.
So, here’s what we’re going to do.
I’ll lay three topics out and weigh in on each with a fact or fiction label.
Pretty easy, right?
Oh Captain My Captain
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There’s obviously no current Leafs captain and it’s been a while since there was one since the departure of Dion Phaneuf.
Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun reported the following from a conversation Pierre LeBrun had with Lou Lamoriello recently.
"I would not be surprised if we did not have a captain next year. Right now, that isn’t something in the forefront. I think we had tremendous leadership this year with a lot of young players and that’s not something being considered at this point."
Now, a captain can be selected amongst the players or management, but I would bank on the Leafs masthead selecting the chosen one.
It’s not entirely up to Lamoriello, but his voice speaks volume.
I’m going to say fact for this one.
Vote Matthews
When bringing up the topic of the Leafs captain vacancy, we have to discuss the white elephant in the room.
Auston Matthews and the ‘C’ of fable.
There’s enough out there on the Internet for you to sift through about this topic.
Leafs management is careful about the captaincy discussion and to my knowledge, they haven’t linked any names and for good reason.
But, it’s clear that Matthews is the frontrunner.
Fact is appropriate here.
Ilya Koval-chuckle
This one should be blatantly obvious, but if it isn’t I’ll make it so.
Last week, Elliotte Friedman ran Ilya Kovalchuk’s names by with Toronto in the conversation.
"I won’t be surprised if some of the interest comes from people who know him – maybe like a Peter DeBoer of San Jose, Martin Brodeur in St. Louis, possibly even a Lou Lamoriello in Toronto."
Now, there’s some truth to that statement because those connections could play a factor.
However, you know as well as I do that Kovalchuk’s not going to to be a Leaf, ever.
I’d even argue that he won’t be back in the NHL, but I guess we’ll see.
This one’s fiction.