WordsOfWisdom

The fans not the team lol. I always distinguish the fans of the team from the team itself.

Irrelevant hockey tidbit: This season marked the 8th time in franchise history that the Leafs have finished in 1st place.... in their own division. The 1999-2000 season is the only time the Leafs have finished 1st in their division in an 82-game season.

A couple of soft plays by Sandin (getting too easily knocked off the puck), defencemen standing in front of the Leafs net not picking up anybody in red and blue, and then the dreadful giveaway at the end. The good news is Matthews and Marner are still poised to break out and do serious damage one of these games.

Just watch. It'll happen this year..... with no fans allowed and no parade allowed. That's exactly the luck of this franchise.

I hope so, otherwise this will quickly turn into a farce and fans will rebel against it. It'll do more to hurt the NHL's PR if the playoffs continue with no fans in Canadian arenas than it will to help it, especially if we get to round 3 and the Canadian team has no home ice advantage while the US team plays in front of a sold out crowd of fans. By that point the NHL (or the government) will have a mob to deal with.

If that happens then as far as I'm concerned it doesn't count. Last season, nobody had fans. The playoffs were in two bubble cities, and they stank. This season, only the Canadian teams aren't allowed fans. That's like the biggest slap in the face to the game of hockey. So I'll go on record right now and say that IF Toronto wins the Stanley Cup, we roll into next season with exactly the same mindset as before: as if the drought had continued and as if Toronto fans are long overdue for a Cup victory. Without fans in the building, and without a parade, it'll be like it never happened. I'm not going to be happy until this team wins back-to-back championships (or if they win this year it'll need to be back-to-back-to-back). A championship that nobody is allowed to see does nothing to appease Leafs fans and does not in any way make up for the past 50 years. It'll count for nothing.

If round 2 is Jets vs Leafs, and there's still no fans allowed in the building, it'll be the biggest tragedy in the history of the NHL.

This just in: Tavares has been diagnosed with an upper body injury.

These are the kind of hits where a player could potentially die, particularly if the game continues to get faster and faster. I've been saying this for years now, and I know this was an isolated incident, but I think the NHL should be taking steps to SLOW the players down rather than taking steps to SPEED THEM UP. The NHL has made several moves to increase the speed of the game, when it was already the fastest game on earth. Most notably: No 2-line pass Lighter weight jerseys and sticks Zero tolerance for hooking, holding, obstruction (maybe there's a middle-ground to be had there) Refusal to stop "on-the-fly" line changes Basically, there's nothing to prevent the players from moving at 100% speed all of the time, and they do it on every shift because the shifts are so short in today's game. Every shift is a 100m dash. The ramifications of that are that we're going to see more and more collisions like these (between teams, between teammates, into boards, etc.) and eventually someone will die on impact. Perhaps the single greatest improvement the league could make is to force players to stay on a shift until a play stoppage occurs. That will guarantee that they get fatigued and it'll guarantee that they have to MANAGE their output, not go 100% all of the time. If the shift becomes 3 minutes long and you go at 100% then you'll be exhausted for the final 2 minutes. Players will need to learn how to conserve energy and play at 60% for most of the shift, ramping up only when a scoring opportunity presents itself (like a break away). My two cents.

Lamest fight ever. Dead silence because there's no crowd. Hockey is not the same without fans. Hard to watch the collision on Tavares. He's done for the playoffs for sure. This is why I said the Habs were not a walk-over opponent. They upgraded their team mid-season.

Playoffs officially begin tonight as Toronto meets Montreal for game 1. A crowd of 20,000 advertisements will be in attendance.

I stand corrected! Did a search online and here's what I found: Toronto and Montreal last faced each other in 1978-79, in a league that most fans wouldn't recognize today. Prince of Wales Conference[edit] Adams Division GP W L T GF GA PTS Boston Bruins 80 43 23 14 316 270 100 Buffalo Sabres 80 36 28 16 280 263 88 Toronto Maple Leafs 80 34 33 13 267 252 81 Minnesota North Stars 80 28 40 12 257 289 68 [1] Norris Division GP W L T GF GA Pts Montreal Canadiens 80 52 17 11 337 204 115 Pittsburgh Penguins 80 36 31 13 281 279 85 Los Angeles Kings 80 34 34 12 292 286 80 Washington Capitals 80 24 41 15 273 338 63 Detroit Red Wings 80 23 41 16 252 295 62 [1] Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, Pts = Points Teams that qualified for the playoffs are highlighted in bold. Clarence Campbell Conference[edit] Patrick Division GP W L T GF GA PTS New York Islanders 80 51 15 14 358 214 116 Philadelphia Flyers 80 40 25 15 281 248 95 New York Rangers 80 40 29 11 316 292 91 Atlanta Flames 80 41 31 8 327 280 90 Smythe Division GP W L T GF GA PTS Chicago Black Hawks 80 29 36 15 244 277 73 Vancouver Canucks 80 25 42 13 217 291 63 St. Louis Blues 80 18 50 12 249 348 48 Colorado Rockies 80 15 53 12 210 331 42

I'll go out on a limb and say it's the first time they've met in the playoffs since the league had 6 teams, and that there's nobody alive today that saw it. The Leafs used to be in the Campbell/Western conference, and they haven't made a Stanley Cup final in over 50 years, so there's no way they could have ever met the Habs in the playoffs if Montreal is in the Wales/Eastern conference.

Leafs coasted to the finish line. Kind of a crap end to a great regular season. Matthews went silent in the final game, and as a result Conacher still holds the distinction of having the best goal scoring season in Leafs history. Matthews slots in at #2. Thanks for playing. So what's the big deal you might ask? Well, if you look at most NHL players, their best seasons come early in their career. Example: Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin. The milestones Matthews is setting now are probably as good as it's ever going to get for him. Scoring at a 60-goal pace is a feat that he's not likely to duplicate. When/if the NHL resumes an 82-game schedule, it's quite possible that Matthews may never officially hit 50 goals. Injuries are always a thing. Lockouts are always a thing. Circumstance, timing, having good teammates, luck, etc. It all plays a role. Look at how John Tavares' numbers have fluctuated for example. I know in his mind (Matthews) there was nothing to play for in that final game against Winnipeg. But statistically speaking there was, and that may have been his first and last chance at it.

He doesn't help either lol.

The US has been hoarding all the vaccines. It's difficult to vaccinate anyone with no vaccines.

Doug Fraud (err I mean Ford) just extended the "stay at home" order to June 2 in Ontario. That means the TOR vs MTL series won't have any fans in the building. First time Toronto has faced Montreal in the playoffs in my lifetime and nobody can see it. F this covid BS.

Toronto's achilles heel would be the following: If Campbell stumbles and the team is forced to switch to an ice cold Frederick Andersen (who appears to have lost his game). If Matthews suddenly goes cold or gets injured.

(I'm going to get you on the Toronto bandwagon yet missy!) True, but if you look at Toronto's performance in recent years they have pushed nearly every series to the maximum number of games before bowing out. Whether it was Boston, Washington, Columbus, or whoever, the Leafs pushed what was usually a 1st place powerhouse team to the limit before going down. Even if the Leafs haven't improved one bit, they're still going to push a team like Boston, Washington, New York, or Pittsburgh to 7 games. They're not an opponent that anyone can just roll over. They'll be a tough out for every one of the other playoff teams. If they have improved (and I'm not sure that they have) then they could go all the way. When I look at the Leafs roster, I see that Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner have improved, but I question whether the rest of the team is better, worse, or the same as last year.

This also marks the first time the Leafs have been the favourite to win their playoff series since ohhhhh......... 2002?

While I believe the Leafs should be able to handle Montreal and win this series in 5 or 6 games, the Habs did upgrade their team and they're not someone to mess around with. The Leafs need to be sharp right from the opening puck drop in game 1 and treat every game like it's game 7 in this series. There are no games off for a franchise that hasn't won a playoff round in 20 years.

My team is very much alive.

Auston Matthews scores again! Goal #41 on the season. 41 goals in just 51 GP. Matthews has now hit the equivalent of the 60-goal plateau! Charlie Conacher is the only other Leafs player in franchise history who can say the same thing. We've gone past the Vaive's and Mahovlich's of the Leafs world now. Only one man left. The Leafs have ONE game remaining. Matthews can TIE Conacher's milestone/record if he can score ONE more goal. If he gets TWO, it's a new Leafs record. I know there aren't a whole lot of media outlets picking up on this, but I also know they'll catch up eventually once they get their statisticians on it, and then act like they're the first ones breaking the story to us (lol). What is the significance of this you may ask? The Leafs are a century-old franchise. If you think of all the players that have ever worn the blue and white, Auston Matthews has a chance to be regarded as the best single season goal scorer of them all. That's a remarkable achievement for any player but especially a young player. Anytime you become the best that a franchise has ever had, that's a rare feat. This raises the bar for the franchise to new heights. The career milestones like total goals, points, etc... obviously take time. Matthews would have to play the bulk of his career in Toronto and stay healthy to reach those. However, I think it's pretty clear that he's on the right pace to destroy those franchise marks as well. But we're not going to worry about those for several more years. One step at a time.

I actually prefer the American spelling on that word.

We're the center of the Canadian universe lol! (I give up figuring out how our politicians like to do things.)