I’m finding the playoffs much harder to enjoy now that I’ve been reminded what it’s like with the Leafs in them.
Links after the jump.
– From yesterday’s media day:
- End of Year Address: Randy Carlyle and Dave Nonis
- Locker Clean out Interviews: Mark Fraser, James Reimer, Nazem Kadri, Dion Phaneuf.
– Game 4 goes tonight for the Toronto Marlies. The Marlies are down 2-1 to Grand Rapids in their best-of-seven Western Conference Semifinals series. Audio will be available here.
– Thoughts from Dave Nonis’ end of year presser. Nonis was pretty tight lipped as per usual. Negotiation tactic or not, he did seem to make a point to clarify Tyler Bozak does not have to be re-signed.
– It’s the May long weekend. It’s time, of course, to start looking ahead to unrestricted free agency. We’ll start with a link to available defencemen. In short, slim pickings. Average age among top available candidates is 35 and there not much there worth more than a flyer. Maybe there’s a decent stopgap option in there somewhere, but it seems Nonis will have to get creative if he is to address the need for shutdown top 4 D who can take a share of Phaneuf’s workload.
– Would the Maple Leafs take Max Domi in the first round of the entry draft? Baseless speculation involving a Larry Tanenbaum Tie-in + more from Damien Cox.
– Tyler Bozak wants to stay. The political angle here with Bozak being a well liked member of the dressing room, especially by a certain highly talented best friend of his, probably shouldn’t go disregarded… but if the rumours about his asking price are even close to true, surely he walks.
