toronto-maple-leafs Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Leafs on precipice of some kind of history
Nobody ever tweeted about a Florida Panthers playoff series victory before last night, when Carter Verhaeghe, off a pass from Claude Giroux – trade deadline acquisition and bringer of tons of vicarious Panthers fans from Philadelphia – lifted Florida to a 4-3 overtime win over the Capitals, and a 4-...
If the Leafs fall in overtime, do their fans make a sound?
I’m usually a sucker for reaction shots of big public viewings of playoff or World Cup games. Seeing that much unbridled joy amongst a group of strangers makes me believe in a better world or that there is a purpose to this silliness....
Leafs and Lightning are playing the strangest series
In a playoff series, especially one between two very good teams which the Lightning and Maple Leafs are, you expect some swings. No one expected a short series, which means twists and turns as teams exchange wins. Momentum generally swings on the performance level of your goalie the next night, but ...
We are too broken and hopeless to deserve a Maple Leafs-Panthers series
At least for one night, I didn’t manage to motherfuck something. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers put on a hockey game dressed as Calvinball last night, with the Cats getting a 7-6 win in OT. It wasn’t even that simple, if a 7-6 game can ever be simple....
It’s happening to the Maple Leafs again
Even though we Chicagoans don’t get a spring — it’s winter until one day somewhere in May when it’s just suddenly summer and we’re all instantly drunk outside — that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize the signs of spring approaching elsewhere. Sure, we’ve been robbed of one of them in spring training. ...
The hockey men were at it again last night
A few times throughout the season, randomly, there’s a night where it feels like hockey players across the league lose their mind. It’s like a hive mentality, perhaps when the banality of the regular season sinks in or becomes too much to deal with and they have to break out in the only way they kno...
Dallas Stars coach benches rookie before homecoming game in front of friends and family
Twenty-three-year-old Riley Tufte got called up to the Dallas Stars’ roster last week to play for their fourth line. He saw a few minutes of playing time in victories against the Flyers and the Red Wings, but the big game for him was going to be his homecoming to face the Minnesota Wild in his home ...
You’ll never believe this, but everyone’s losing their mud about the Maple Leafs
If you looked up and to the north this morning and thought you could make out a noxious cloud in the distance, don’t worry, it’s just the usual October phenomenon. The NHL season is two weeks old and the Toronto Maple Leafs have not awarded the Stanley Cup due to the majesty of their excellence and ...
2021 NHL Previews: Fifty-four years between Cups for Toronto, going on 55
The Toronto Maple Leafs have now crossed the Rangers Line. The most famous Stanley Cup drought in history belonged to New York, which for years had to hear “1940” chants until Mark Messier, Mike Richter, and company finally broke the hex in 1994....
The last thing we need is a Maple Leafs docuseries
The whole behind-the-scenes docuseries has been a bit played out. Hard Knocks started it, and it came to hockey almost a decade ago with the 24/7 series that tracked the two teams in that given year’s Winter Classic for the month leading up to the New Year’s Day game. Some of it was compelling stuff...
Hey, Knicks fans: At least you’re not the Maple Leafs
How bad was the Toronto Maple Leafs’ collapse? It’s better to be a Knicks fan right now....
Now the Leafs have the calamity they’ve always wanted
Because everything is outsized with the Leafs, the idea that they’ve been coughing up genuine chances at the Stanley Cup year-after-year has grown at the rate and scale of The Blob. Being the Leafs, everything around them is audibly multiplied by at least 12, so the sheer volume that is emitted from...
If it’s not the Leafs this season, which teams have the best (worst?) shot at passing the Rangers 54-year Cup futility?
The New York Rangers are the historic gold standard for futility in the NHL, having gone 54 years without winning the Stanley Cup until finally getting the job done in 1994 (see Mark Messier with the Cup above) — after decades of being taunted with “1940” chants in enemy arenas....
Seems like old times, eh Leafs?
By now you know the key points. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967, haven’t been to the Final since then either, haven’t beaten the Canadiens in a series since their ’67 title clash, won their first division title since 2000 this season (thanks to being in the all-Canadia...
Hockey is the dumbest sport
It’s funny (but not), and fitting, that in a week where we’ve spent a great deal of time talking about baseball’s old, drunk, incontinent demons still plaguing the youthful and logical, hockey strolls into the saloon, hitches up its belt, and says, “Oh, you think you’re stupid? I’ll show you stupid....
After 28 years, hockey finally corrects its Habs-Leafs mistake
The NHL has been through so many realignments that sometimes you wonder if it shouldn’t just do a random draw before every season (actually, that’s not a terrible idea). It’s when you get to the real aims of past realignments that things get more interesting. ...
Once again, for those in the back: Cancel the Canucks season now, because this proposed schedule is doo-doo
The NHL came to its senses a tiny bit by pushing back the Vancouver Canucks’ return to the ice, but a team that already has a minuscule chance of making the playoffs still will be asked to play a grueling gauntlet of a schedule to close out the season....
The NHL trade deadline, and the Maple Leafs in particular, continue to be really weird
There’s nothing like the NHL trade deadline to warp what you thought you knew about teams’ priorities and how players are valued. GMs alternate between desperation to chase the Cup and desperation to get anything for players who can’t wait to high-tail it out of town at the season’s end. The process...
Jazz and Suns give us a sensational late-night cookie in a season lacking real drama
I’ve used this space to try and quiet any meaning to NBA regular-season games. It’s been especially acute this season, when teams have rarely been at full-strength, and they seem more intent on just being intact for the playoffs, which they know are what counts and are more likely to have at least s...
Auston Matthews can’t miss this year
The Maple Leafs were able to clear some, if not all, the clouds of stink out of ScotiaBank Arena after their collapse against the Senators on Monday by beating those same Sens 2-1 last night. You can be sure the Steve Simmons ilk will still be referencing that pissing away of a four-goal lead to the...