Toronto Maple Leafs News and Random Thoughts from Around the NHL

The Toronto Maple Leafs may or may not play hockey soon.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are scheduled to destroy the Flavor Town Blue Jackets in the play-in best of five, but as America is currently being led by a former Monday Night Raw castmember, things are not looking so hot.

Still, the potential change of Columbus to Flavor Town is one spot of light in an otherwise dire newscycle.

If things go well, the FTBJs will start play towards the end of the month.  According to TSN, the NHL and the NHLPA are inching closer to an agreement.   Word is that training camps could open up in a week or so.

Speaking of TSN, the only hockey personality that everyone likes, as well as noted former Jay Leno impersonator, Bob McKenzie, is set to retire.   Sure, keep Pierre McGuire and Dave Poulin, but take away Bob.  Doesn’t seem fair.

Here is Bob himself with a list of important dates (linked to above):

"July 13: Beginning of Phase 3. That’s when they’d want the players to report to camp.July 26 or thereabouts: The teams would leave their home cities and go to the two hubs, Toronto and Edmonton for the beginning of Phase 4 on August 1.Aug. 1: Keep in mind, the first part of Phase 4 is the preliminary or qualifier. Best-of-five series.Aug. 10: Remember, the losers of that series go into the (Phase 2) Draft Lottery. On or around August 10 or 11, thereabouts. We could get the Draft Lottery and determine the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft.Early October: Then you have the Stanley Cup being presented. Again, it’s target date. That’s what they would like to have happen.Mid-October: The NHL Draft would have to happen quickly after the Stanley Cup is being presented.Nov. 1: And right now, Nov. 1 would be the first day of the business year for the 2020-21 season. And that would be free agent frenzy day. The day after Halloween, Gino. If everything stays to plan."

I think the main thing we can take from that is that if you plan to go out for Halloween this year, you definitely want to go as David Clarkson, that way you can get about 100 x more candy than you deserve.

As for the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team that would have been the best in the NHL if only they’d had some half-decent goaltending, are now semi-officially the hosting city of the Eastern Conference.

Since none of us can actually go to the games, I’m not sure that this really matters too much to the fans, but it is at least nice to see that the NHL didn’t put both hub cities out west, and neither of them in Las Vegas.

In the event that the league actually does hold a Stanley Cup Final this year, that will be played in Edmonton.  And yes, it does seem typical of the Leafs that when they finally win their first Cup of the post-expansion era that they will do so by playing all four to seven games in Edmonton.

As for Auston Matthews, it’s been two weeks since we learned of his diagnosis, and we hope that he is recovering well, although there has been no news.