John Tavares (top left), Auston Matthews (top right), Mitch Marner (bottom left) and Fredrik Andersen (bottom right).
Harper Cotie and Chad Melbourne
Most of the chatter this NHL off-season has been focused on the Toronto Maple Leafs, and rightfully so. The Leafs are now legitimate Stanley Cup contenders, which is something we haven’t been able to say for a long time. In fact, earlier this week, EA Sports’ NHL 19 predicted the Leafs to hoist Lord Stanley’s mug in 2019. Mike Babcock is entering his fourth season as the Leafs Head Coach, with very high expectations for his group. The Maple Leafs’ five-year rebuild, starting in 2015-16, has gone way ahead of schedule.
In the last two seasons, the Leafs have made it to the post-season with nothing to lose. In those two seasons, they have lost in the first-round. This team surprised everyone by making the playoffs in 2016-17 when they gave the Washington Capitals a run for their money. Last season (2017-18), the Leafs fell apart in the seventh and deciding game against their Atlantic Division rival Boston Bruins, with the expectation of possibly making the second-round.
This season, those expectations have drastically changed. There was a lot of change in Leaf-land this summer. General Manager Kyle Dubas, who took over for Lou Lamoriello, landed the biggest free-agent available in John Tavares to a seven-year, $77 million-dollar contract. If you want to have success in this league, you must be deep down the middle. The Leafs now have depth in the centre-ice position with three 30 plus goal-scorers in Tavares, Matthews and Kadri. With the addition of Tavares, the Leafs couldn’t afford to hang on to veterans James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak and Leo Komarov. Not a big deal, considering the kind of player they brought in, obviously.
The Leafs are also strong on the wing, even with William Nylander out of the lineup, due to his contract hold-out situation. Team President Brendan Shanahan said that young players have to make sacrifices in order to have success and win. Hopefully the Leafs and Nylander can get something done very soon. With Nylander out of the lineup, this creates an opportunity for several talented wingers in the team’s lineup. To throw names out there, Tyler Ennis has been able to play top minutes alongside the American superstar Auston Matthews. Ennis has struggled in the last few seasons to find his game but playing on Matthews’ wing has seemed to give him new hope. Ennis was bought out this summer by the Minnesota Wild with one year remaining on his five-year, $23 million-dollar contract that he signed back in 2013, as a member of the Buffalo Sabres. He is a proven 20 goal scorer who has battled concussions throughout his career, but Dubas took a chance, and signed him to a one-year, $650,000 contract after he was bought out. This is a low risk, high reward kind of signing, especially if he gets to continue to play with the likes of Matthews.
A few days ago, the Leafs lost two, backup goaltenders due to waivers. Veteran Curtis McElhinney was claimed by the Carolina Hurricanes and Calvin Pickard was claimed by the Philadelphia Flyers. This means that 2017-18 AHL Goaltender of the year and Calder Cup Champion, Garrett Sparks, will serve as Freddy Anderson’s backup. Former Toronto Marlie Jeff Glass is returning to the AHL club, and will support Kasimir Kaskisou between the pipes for this upcoming season. While Pickard and McElhinney have been claimed by Philadelphia and Carolina respectively, there is still a chance that these players can end up back in the Maple Leafs organization. The NHL waiver process is complicated and confusing, so we won’t get into too much detail. The main thing to understand is rule 13:22 of the NHL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement which states:
“When a Club claims a Player on Regular or Unconditional Waivers, and, subsequently, in the same season it requests Waivers on the same Player and the original owning Club is the successful and only Club making a Waiver claim, then the original owning Club shall be entitled to Loan such Player to a club in another league within thirty days without further Waivers being asked; provided that such Player has not participated in ten or more NHL Games (cumulative) and remained on an NHL roster more than thirty days (cumulative) following such successful claim” (NHL and NHLPA, 82). Link to full CBA in PDF here: http://www.nhl.com/nhl/en/v3/ext/CBA2012/NHL_NHLPA_2013_CBA.pdf
Basically, if the Flyers or Hurricanes place Pickard or McElhinney on waivers once their starting goaltenders return full-time, and the Leafs are the only team interested, then they can successfully reclaim the player and send him directly to the AHL without waivers. So, we’re not saying that the Leafs will for sure get one or both of these players back. What we are saying is, there’s a chance.
On Wednesday night, the Leafs’ downed the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 in overtime at their new Scotiabank Arena. Matthews had two goals, including the overtime winner, and Tavares notched his first as a member of the Leafs. This was a bit of an ugly win for the Leafs’ against a hungry and quick, Canadiens team. Carey Price stood on his head as usual between the pipes, along with impressive performances from Max Domi and rookie Jesperi Kotkaniemi. However, a win is a win, and we can expect the Leafs’ to have a lot of those this season. The Leafs take on the Ottawa Senators this Saturday night.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out, but the Leafs’ are in with the group of teams who will contend for a cup in 2018-19. Ladies and gentleman, hockey is back!