Toronto Maple Leafs to Host NHL’s Best Rookie Since Auston Matthews

The Toronto Maple Leafs will host the Chicago Blackhawks tonight as they look to win their third straight game to start the season.

The game will mark the first glimpse that Toronto Maple Leafs fans get of Connor Bedard, the best player to enter the NHL since Auston Matthews was a rookie back in 2016. 

Though Bedard is exciting (three points in three games, and a 55% XGoals despite playing on what is quite possible, at least without him, the NHL’s worst team).

Though Bedard is quite the sideshow, Leafs fans just want the two points.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Chicago Blackhawks

It’s pretty embarrassing to be a Leafs fan sometimes – for example, instead of everyone talking about Auston Matthews or William Nylander, the two biggest topics this season are Ryan Reaves and the goal song.

Ryan Reaves is a bad hockey player who regularly loses his minutes, and due to the screaming of misinformed people, analytics aren’t very trendy right now, but regardless, the math doesn’t change regardless of what you believe.

As for the goal song, corporations are very sensitive to the complaints of less than 1% of people, but it’s important to remember that these things are not a reflection of reality and people today are no more offended about minor things than the people of the past were.

Yes, it’s very cowardly and silly of Toronto Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment to change the song based on complaints about lyrics not even present in the part that gets played after scoring, but this is how corporations always react.   It has nothing to do with “wokeness” and is really just about corporate greed.

As for the game, hopefully the Leafs will play a much better game than they played on Saturday, where despite winning, the Minnesota Wild destroyed them for pretty much the entire game.

Tonight’s game will feature Joseph Woll making his 2023 debut, and Tie Domi will be moved back to the third line in favor of Calle Jarnkrok, which is something we saw in Saturday’s game as well.

Once again though, Sheldon Keefe will turn to a defensive pairing of Jake McCabe and John Klingberg who, so far, have been incredibly awful.

It’s only two games into the season, so it does make sense to see if the sample is just small, and if they’ll get it together.  That said, McCabe especially has to be better.  He has been the Leafs worst player *(not counting Ryan Reaves) so far.

Still, if the Leafs can win again tonight, it will be an incredible start to the season.  Despite what appears to be mostly complaints in this article, there is so much to love about this team.