The Toronto Maple Leafs are officially done until after Christmas.
Yesterday, after the Toronto Maple Leafs game against the Seattle Kraken was postponed, the NHL announced that all cross-border games would be cancelled until further notice.
With nobody wanting to get stuck in quarantine in a different country over the holidays, this is the most obvious thing the NHL needed to do, it’s just unfortunate that they waited so long to do it.
The NHL also announced that Columbus was shutting down today until Christmas, and they are the first team the Leafs are supposed to play after Christmas.
Toronto Maple Leafs Shutdown
The Leafs currently have seven players in the NHL’s Covid Protocol, as well as their coach and one of their assistants. Additionally, the Marlies have ten players who have tested positive, so I’m not sure how the Leafs will cobble together a team to play games any time soon.
At this point, who really cares about hockey? It’s a nice diversion, but hopefully everyone is doing OK and isn’t stuck somewhere on the west coast over the holidays.
CBJ shutting down also postpones all of Buffalo's remaining pre-Christmas games.
— Natural Stat Trick (@NatStatTrick) December 20, 2021
MTL shutdown doesn't affect the game schedule, they were already done thanks to the cross-border shutdown.
Down to 10 games in the next 4 nights, from 34 originally scheduled. https://t.co/oCWhspXrSO
On the positive side of the equation, even though there probably won’t be any Toronto Maple Leafs games for a while, we can at least be happy with the games we’ve seen so far.
The Leafs are far and away the best version of the team to hit the ice since the early 2000s when Mats Sundin and Curtis Joseph were leading the NHL’s best team. That team didn’t end up winning, but maybe we’ll get luckier this time.
The current Leafs have so many elite players that Zach Hyman was their ninth most important player. They are so deep that they consistently lose their depth players on waivers, and have about ten quality NHL options who they could use in a pinch if they have to.
They’re practically in first place and they haven’t even gotten anything out of Petr Mrazek yet.
Everything is clicking for the Leafs. Matthews is hot, their special teams are among the best, they’re coach, GM, salary cap, depth, scoring, defense, etc. This is a balanced team with no apparent weaknesses, and one whose record actually looks to be sustainable.
So while we won’t likely be seeing any Toronto Maple Leafs hockey for a while, this team does give us a lot to look forward to.