Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Finnish Defenseman + Other Weekend News

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been through their first week of summer training camp.

After months of waiting, NHL hockey is on the horizon again, as the Toronto Maple Leafs embark on a two week mini-camp ahead of their upcoming series against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

After months of no hockey news, the first week of camp was happily uneventful.

The Leafs broke their team into two scrimmage groups, top prospect Nick Robertson got a run on the top line after a minor injury to Zach Hyman, and the Leafs signed a depth player.

Nothing too crazy, and that’s probably a good thing.

Toronto Maple Leafs Training Camp

One thing I saw this week – and it might have been news earlier but maybe I missed it – was that NHL players will not be required to wear suits to games during the playoffs.

This is good news because the rule that players must dress in suits to show up at games is antiquated and offensively stupid.  Like the rules that Lou Lamoriello enforced when he was here about facial hair, forcing players to wear suits was pointless and embarrassing.

No other league has such a ridiculous rule, and its nice that the NHL has abandoned it,  but why was it a rule in the first place?

Such rules enforce conformity and little else.   It’s really about insecure people getting power over other people and enforcing their own tiny world view upon them.

I personally don’t care how players dress, but I see no reason on earth why they shouldn’t dress however they want to.

As to Teemu Kivihalme, he’s a left who is 25 years old and he’s nothing more than a nice depth add.  Maybe he catches a break and steals a lineup spot like Pierre Engvall or Justin Holl, but more than likely he’s just a solid depth player you can use if you have to.

Much like Calle Rosen and Martin Marincin, Kivihalme gives the Leafs insurance options and not much else.  He signed a two year deal and will most likely spend most of it with the Toronto Marlies.

Finally, the only other really interesting thing from the weekend was the Toronto Maple Leafs deploying a power line in one of the scrimmage games that featured the allstar fantasy line of Tavares-Matthews-Marner.

This is the fun part about having such a great team.  The Leafs would obviously be better served spreading the talent around most of the time, but, for example, at the end of a game, down by a goal, this could be an option.

It’s not really news – they’ve done it before – but it is always fun to remember that the Leafs – and few other teams – can actually do something like this.