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The Maple Leafs And Avalanche Pulled Off A Wonderful Trade
Sometimes trades are far simpler than GMs make them out to be. It’s understandable why many are hesitant: the fear of losing a trade is real, and GMs tend toward maintaining the status quo, since the status quo involves them having a job. But: a trade doesn’t have to have a loser. The Colorado Avala...

Bruins Beat The Leafs In Game 7, Because Time Is Frozen And Reality Is Stuck On Loop
Whether or not you believe in omens or fate or curses or a God who hates Canada, it’s never a good sign when a goalie loses his corporeality for a few crucial seconds in the first period of a Game 7 that a whole country is desperately clinging to as a final hope. With Winnipeg and Calgary both dispa...

Mitch Marner Is Everything For The Leafs
Probably the biggest story out of Monday night’s 3-2 Leafs win over the Bruins is the resurrection of Auston Matthews, who in the second period scored his first goal in the month of April to put Toronto in the lead for good. But if there’s an enduring image of this game for Leafs’ fans—particularly ...

Nazem Kadri Is Done For The Rest Of The First Round
As expected, the NHL hit Toronto Maple Leafs forward Nazem Kadri with a multi-game suspension on Monday evening for his high crosscheck on Boston Bruin Jake DeBrusk from Game 2 of their first-round series on Saturday:...

The Refs Lost Control As The Bruins And Maple Leafs Tried To Kill Each Other
The Bruins took Game 2 against the Maple Leafs on Saturday with a 4-1 win in Boston. Though they won with a large margin of victory on the scoreboard, the game was much closer in terms of physicality. ...

Leafs' Nazem Kadri Sets Up Beautiful Breakaway For William Nylander With Pinpoint Feed
After going down against the Boston Bruins early, the Toronto Maple Leafs spent a majority of Game 1 (so far) effectively defending seemingly every scoring opportunity their opponents got. The Leafs have now gotten to the point where they’ve been able to turn that strong defense into some magical of...
![NHL Finds Morgan Rielly Did Not Use Anti-Gay Slur Toward Ref [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/o2qqvyochljre8rnfikn.jpg)
NHL Finds Morgan Rielly Did Not Use Anti-Gay Slur Toward Ref [Updated]
Update, 12:55 p.m.: The NHL has announced that Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly has been cleared of accusations that he directed a homophobic slur against an official in Monday night’s game. Here’s the statement from Colin Campbell:...

Islanders Fans Treat John Tavares To "Asshole" Chants, Hail Of Plastic Snakes In Return To New York
John Tavares is playing his first game in Nassau Coliseum as a member of the visiting team Thursday night, after he signed a seven-year, $77 million contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs on the first day of free agency back in July. Islanders fans, you can probably guess, have saved up quite a lot o...

Islanders Fans Treat John Tavares To "Asshole" Chants, Hail Of Plastic Snakes In Return To New York
John Tavares is playing his first game in Nassau Coliseum as a member of the visiting team Thursday night, after he signed a seven-year, $77 million contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs on the first day of free agency back in July. Islanders fans, you can probably guess, have saved up quite a lot o...

Jilted Islanders Fans Have Harsh Words For John Tavares In Extremely Long Island Video
Thursday is a very special day in Nassau County. John Tavares returns to the Coliseum (where the Islanders are playing half their home dates, because that Brooklyn thing really isn’t working out) for the first time since leaving the Isles after nine seasons and signing with the Maple Leafs. But it’s...

Jilted Islanders Fans Have Harsh Words For John Tavares In Extremely Long Island Video
Thursday is a very special day in Nassau County. John Tavares returns to the Coliseum (where the Islanders are playing half their home dates, because that Brooklyn thing really isn’t working out) for the first time since leaving the Isles after nine seasons and signing with the Maple Leafs. But it’s...

The Deadspin Idiots Eat Gold Foods
I remember watching 2 Chainz eat a $295 burger on GQ’s “Most Expensive Sh*t” series and thinking, “hell to the naw.” $295 for a burger?! And you don’t even get fries with it! Of course, this was not a regular burger, but the “Le Burger Extravagant” from Serendipity 3. The burger consists of all the ...

This Is What It Takes To Sign Auston Matthews
The thing about building an elite team—something the Leafs have done for the very first time in the salary-cap era—is that, very quickly, you have to figure out how to pay for it. It gets top-heavy, and you either have to get creative, or see it all fall apart. The Maple Leafs already agreed to pay ...

The Difference In The East Could Be Andrei Vasilevskiy
In a just world, the Lightning and Maple Leafs would meet in the Eastern Conference final. But it is not a just world, and because the two clear best teams in the East also happen to be the two best teams in the Atlantic Division, the NHL’s playoff format puts the two on track for a second-round sho...

William Nylander Ends Holdout, Agrees To Six-Year Deal With Maple Leafs
The William Nylander saga officially came to a close on Saturday after the 22-year-old winger signed a contract extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs, as first reported by TSN’s Darren Dreger....
![William Nylander And The Leafs Have 26 Hours To Figure This Out [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/xdyccglydedtrdg350fi.jpg)
William Nylander And The Leafs Have 26 Hours To Figure This Out [Update]
The Toronto Maple Leafs, with the newly acquired John Tavares leading the way, are enjoying a strong start to the 2018–19 season. With 36 points from 26 games and the best goal differential in hockey (+26), a team that lost a hard-fought seven-game first-round playoff series to the Bruins last sprin...

Morgan Rielly Apologizes To Devils' Keith Kinkaid For Scoring Very Savable Goal
It was a tough night for New Jersey Devils goalie Keith Kinkaid. The backup-turned-starter was on the wrong end of a 6-1 shellacking from an Auston Matthews-less Toronto Maple Leafs. ...

Erik Haula Taken Off Ice On Stretcher After Nasty Knee Injury
Vegas Golden Knights forward Erik Haula had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher in the third period of his team’s game against the Maple Leafs tonight, after a clean check against the boards from Patrick Marleau forced Haula’s right leg to bend in a way it’s not supposed to bend....

Hunter S. Thompson Told Jim Irsay To Draft Ryan Leaf Over Peyton Manning
Hunter S. Thompson predicted, in the most general sense, the coming of Donald Trump, or at least the flourishing of the reactionary, retaliatory, mutually-assured-destructive base that put him and his ilk into power. (He also noted, as early as anyone, that the American experiment had peaked and per...