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It’s Official, Toronto Maple Leafs Do Not Win the Stanley Cup

By James Tanner

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - MARCH 30: Shea Theodore #27 of the Vegas Golden Knights celebrates his goal with teammates on the bench during the second period against the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on March 30, 2022 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - MARCH 30: Shea Theodore #27 of the Vegas Golden Knights celebrates his goal with teammates on the bench during the second period against the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on March 30, 2022 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images) /
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The Toronto Maple Leafs have been out of the playoffs for weeks, but the 2022-23 NHL Season is now officially over and congratulations are somewhat due to the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

You’d think it would be embarrassing for an expansion team to win before the Toronto Maple Leafs  did, but we’re used to it.

The Leafs have not won the Stanley Cup or played in the Finals since 1967 when the NHL had only 5 other teams.  They didn’t win when there were 16 teams, 21 teams, 22 teams, 24, 30 or 32 teams.

Maybe 32 is their lucky number.

Who knows?

It’s Official, Toronto Maple Leafs Do Not Win the Stanley Cup

The headline might seem weird, but this whole time I’ve been holding out hope that the Leafs playoff run can be restored on some kind of technicality.

Like maybe it turned out that Florida had circumvented the salary cap, circumvented the salary cap rules that every other team follows and were being turfed in favour of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I’m Kidding – it was Vegas who did that, and Toronto is in the East so this could never happen.

Ladies and gentlement – your default Stanley Cup Finalists.

Obviously I’m being facetious here because we all know the NHL would never actually enforce it’s own rules.

Who knew that the secret to Stanley Cup success was to have your best player sit out for half a season, miraculously become healthy when the playoffs start and make a mockery of the Salary Cap?

Oh what’s that, we already knew that possible?

Hmmmm

I’m sure the NHL is thrilled that two of their last three champions are teams who sat their best player out until the cap didn’t count anymore.

I know I am thrilled about it.

What’s so egregious about Tampa and Vegas basically cheating is that they both sat out their best players for the perfect amount of time. They didn’t even bother to try and make it look good.

Vegas put Stone on the LTIR then spent that money, then brought him back for the playoffs where his back injury allowed him to play in every game, score 11 goals, including a hattrick in the Cup Clincher, and score over a pint per game.

The Toronto Maple Leafs plan for next year should be to send Mitch Marner to the IR at Christmas time, then trade for another $10 million worth of players, only for Marner to get a miracle cure at the end of March.

Next. Exploring 4 Options for Matt Murray. dark

Just kidding kids, just because someone else doesn’t follow the rules, doesn’t make it the right thing to do.  It is, however, extremely annoying when you do follow the rules and then teams who do not are rewarded.

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