leaf Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

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...

So Much For The Leafs
This was its own collapse, in its way. Sure, it was not as shocking or brutal as 2013, but few things in sports history are. In 2013, the Leafs entered the third period of Game 7 against the Bruins with a lead and surrendered four unanswered goals to lose 5-4. In 2018, the Leafs entered the third pe...

Bruins Crush The Maple Leafs In Game 7 Once Again<em></em><em></em>
A whirlwind of a Game 7 between the Maple Leafs and the Bruins was slowly but surely taken over by the home team, as Boston reversed a two-game losing streak and erased multiple deficits to beat Toronto 7-4 and win their first-round series....

Toronto Wins
Ten people were killed and 15 others hospitalized on Monday when a man drove a rented van onto the sidewalk and plowed through pedestrians for more than half a mile on one of Toronto’s busiest streets. It feels almost rote by this point to transition from tragedy to sporting event, but it makes sens...

Tuukka Rask Ruined The Maple Leafs' Best And Maybe Last Chance
This was the Maple Leafs’ chance, and it was probably their season....

Idiot On The Pitch Tries To Tackle Ref, Fails
Oldham Athletic was playing a match against Rochdale AFC Tuesday when the referee signaled a penalty for Rochdale after a trip in the box. One Oldham fan did what any sensible person would in that situation: He ran onto the pitch and tried to tackle the referee....

This Save Is Bonkers
It doesn’t take much imagination—“if he’d been just a centimeter out of position there” or “if that had been just half an inch to the right”—to imagine most blocked shots as goals. But, goddamn, this one below is almost easier to imagine as the hypothetical goal that it wasn’t than the actual save t...

The Bruins Whupped The Leafs, But The Ugliness Is Just Beginning
Despite one truly beautiful goal from Toronto’s Zach Hyman, the Bruins easily dispatched the Maple Leafs at home in the first game of their opening-round series tonight, winning 5-1. Boston looked good doing it, too—they closed the night with four straight goals, including this third-period highligh...

Thank God, Auston Matthews Is Back
Young Maple Leafs sensation Auston Matthews returned to the team Thursday night after a month-long layoff due to a shoulder injury, suiting up for a 5-2 win at league-leading Nashville. It didn’t take long for Matthews to satisfy our cravings for some pretty, self-assured stickhandling....

Nazem Kadri and Rasmus Ristolainen <em></em>Fight, Also Debate Basic Math
Nazem Kadri and Rasmus Ristolainen dropped gloves in the Sabres’ 5-3 win over the Leafs Monday, but the fight wasn’t as entertaining as the math argument that followed. Here’s the amateur wrestling match:...

Auston Matthews Can Stickhandle His Way Out Of Any Peril
Auston Matthews announced his NHL arrival last season by taking on the entire Senators line single-handedly and winning, thanks to his unreal stickhandling, and he gave us a near-reprise tonight against the very same team. Matthews started with his back to the net in the offensive zone, then maneuve...

Nazem Kadri And Joe Thornton Get Mad, Get Thrown Out Of Faceoff Circle, Fight
The Leafs’ Nazem Kadri and Sharks’ Joe Thornton got chippy with each other about as fast as possible tonight—sniping at each other in the faceoff circle to the point of getting kicked out of the circle before dropping gloves to start fighting, all of two seconds into the game. ...

Leafs Troll Calgary By Honoring Grey Cup Champs Before Game Against Flames
The Toronto Argonauts handed the Calgary Stampeders their second successive Grey Cup loss last week in heartbreaking fashion, returning a Calgary fumble 109 yards for a game-tying touchdown with five minutes remaining, then clinching with a late winning field goal. It was the kind of win that will f...
