Leafs

2023 - 1 - 1

Post cover — Image courtesy of "The Globe and Mail"

Predictions for 2023: Someone will win, except the Leafs in the first ... (The Globe and Mail)

In 2023, the Blue Jays will be in the World Series and a Canadian man will win a tennis Grand Slam.

The event of the year will be a boxing match: The sporting calendar is thin on big, global events in 2023. Hockey Canada will slip the trap: The most logical end of the biggest Canadian sports scandal in a generation was the trip-mining of the organization that oversaw it. For all that effort, the Leafs are still looking at a first-round matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Oleksandr Usyk to unite all the heavyweight belts will be that sort of fight. A bit of theatre for the rubes, after which the organization continues to shamble forward. The Leafs will lose in the first round: As it stands, the Toronto-based art installation entitled False Hope that is open to the public twice a week at the Scotiabank Arena stands third overall in the NHL standing. The Masters is the first major of the year. Connor McDavid will never ask to leave Edmonton: Once again this year, McDavid is the most reliable source of highlights in the NHL. It will probably happen in March, probably in the Middle East, and probably will end with Usyk becoming Ukraine’s international sporting avatar. The Blue Jays will be in the World Series: And not because the team is put together so well, though it isn’t bad. The only way for that future boondoggle to get rolling is for the city/province to become temporarily delirious with BJ Birdy Flu. You’d say that McDavid is in danger of becoming the next Marcel Dionne, but he’s already there.

2023 Is a Defining Year for the Toronto Maple Leafs (Editor In Leaf)

If the Leafs win a playoff round this year and the core of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares are the team's best players, Dubas' ...

With every year that passes, Tavares’ contract will continue to look worse, so they need to win while he’s still a top-50 player in the league. If this team doesn’t win, the GM, head coach and a key player or two could be traded, and we don’t want to see that happen, yet. Although it’s probably a silly move to trade one of them, the pressure will be on and they’ll have to, because if they don’t, they’ll be delusional. The former Hart Trophy winner is clearly enjoying his time in the blue-and-white, but he’s a competitor who needs to win. The future of the Leafs is bright, but it’s also uncertain. The pandemic was still relevant and stopped some games, but when the playoffs started, fans were allowed back in the building, giving the Leafs a legitimate home-ice advantage.

Opinion | New year's resolution for Leafs fans: Chill till the playoffs (Toronto Star)

Matt Murray, Auston Matthews and the Maple Leafs closed out 2022 with a one-. Leafs. Opinion ...

[Michael Bunting](https://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/2022/12/26/no-ones-asking-michael-bunting-and-the-leafs-about-that-slow-start-any-more.html) (one into the empty net). Brodie,](https://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/players/134378/stats) on top of scoring his second goal of the campaign, led the team with a half-dozen shots on goal. [John Tavares,](https://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/opinion/2022/10/13/why-leafs-captain-john-tavares-expects-this-season-to-have-a-happier-ending.html) who contributed a pair of assists. That’s a dynamic team and if you let them get the momentum and make it easy on them — the way I thought we did in the end of the first and second periods — you could see them come alive. [this recent three-game swing through the Central Division](https://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/opinion/2022/12/31/why-the-leafs-100000-boxing-day-travel-fine-seems-like-a-bargain.html) that garnered four points for Toronto off wins in Denver [and St. A lot of good things here, to win a road game and close out our trip.” [Mitch Marner](https://www.thestar.com/topic.mitch_marner.html) recorded 118 points in 2022 and Matthews 115, accounting for the second- and third-most offensively productive calendar year in Maple Leafs annals, behind only Doug Gilmour’s 121 points in 1993. “So, yeah, it’s a good way to close out what feels like a real long road trip. On Saturday, they never gave the Avs a chance to mount a similar comeback. Something Leaf Nation — understandably impatient and chronically jittery over a glitzy team that has crushed the collective soul repeatedly in the playoff crunch — would do well to emulate. And the Leafs will get there. That’s the nature of fandom and sports passion.

Maple Leafs Exposing Fatal Flaw in Current Playoff Format (The Hockey Writers)

The Toronto Maple Leafs are enjoying life these days. But see why their success is exposing a big flaw in the current playoff format.

This is the fatal flaw in the current playoff format. But since they are each in the Atlantic, one of them is guaranteed to lose in the first round. Sadly the playoff system is flawed. All of the Bruins, Maple Leafs and Lightning are among the best in the NHL and legitimate Stanley Cup contenders. However the Maple Leafs would draw the Capitals instead of the Lightning. That puts the Maple Leafs second in the Atlantic which according to the playoff format means they play whoever is third in the Atlantic. Instead, unless the Maple Leafs reel in the Bruins, they face the real possibility of having to play the defending Eastern Conference champions in the first round. And with that, a fatal flaw is exposed in the way the current playoff format works. As of this writing, guess who the Maple Leafs would play in the first round? In other words, the success of the Maple Leafs is ultimately punishing them. They have one of the top offenses in the NHL. But none of that matters here for the purposes of this discussion.

Sunday Chat: Happy New Year to 2023! (Pension Plan Puppets)

And we're expecting to get a shiny new toy (or two) come the deadline, in the form of a trade and/or bringing in Matthew Knies once his NCAA season is over. We ...

[Joseph Woll is on the comeback trail entering 2023](https://mapleleafshotstove.com/2022/12/31/joseph-woll-is-on-the-comeback-trail-entering-2023/) But if how they ended the 2022 year [against the defending champs](https://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/2022/12/31/23533970/recap-maple-leafs-beat-the-avalanche-with-a-lot-of-goals-and-matt-murray) is any indication, we’re ready to start 2023 on the right foot. We don’t know if the big trade acquisition winds up being a forward or a defenseman, but we can 100% expect to debate that 24/7 until the deadline is over. We have some shiny new toys in the bottom six, including a prospect like Pontus Holmberg who has seemingly come out of nowhere to become a fan and coach favourite. But we have a couple of new goalies who (until this month) have been pretty great. Maybe this is it — maybe this is finally Toronto’s year for the playoffs.

No matter what comes next in 2023 for strong Maple Leafs club ... (Toronto Sun)

If the Maple Leafs collectively had one New Year's resolution, we can make a fairly easy assumption as to what it would have been.

Matthews’ 58 goals in 2022 were the most in the NHL after Connor McDavid went without one in the Edmonton Oilers’ loss to Winnipeg on New Year’s Eve. Mitch Marner is Mitch Marner, and John Tavares is producing at nearly a point-a-game clip. For that matter, the job of president Brendan Shanahan, we would imagine, also would not be safe. It’s going to be fascinating to learn what the MLSE board finds acceptable whenever the Leafs are done in the post-season. Barring a sudden fall by the Boston Bruins, the Leafs appear to be headed for another first-round matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Article content