Columbus
News broke last evening that Corey Perry had signed an 8 year deal totalling 69 million dollars to stay with the Anaheim Ducks and his newly signed centerman (also of 8 years), Ryan Getzlaf. [more…]
Great to see such an active group of readers. Here are a couple of FanPosts for your Friday afternoon reading enjoyment with today's theme being youth, youth and more youth. Paul LeMay (B. Leaf) takes an in-depth look at the team's organizational prospect depth while Chuck Johnson compares Nazem Kadri's chances of making the NHL as a 2nd year player with those of previous high draft picks. [more…]
The Leafs will start and end with Montreal as to be expected. The schedule includes nine back-to-backs, an increase over the seven they played last season. The Leafs will head northwest March 22-24 to play Minnesota and Colorado after hosting them last season. The most taxing travel appears to be a four game stretch from January 7 - 13 when the Buds will make stops in Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Jose and Phoenix. The Leafs will also conduct a potentially critical division tour from February 12 - 19 when they face off consecutively with each Northeast rival. From December 14-18, the Blue and White will go on a Western Canada road trip where they can visit Taylor Hall, Matt Stajan and Kyle Wellwood. The full sched after the jump:
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A couple weeks ago, we heard from Aaron Portzline that Columbus could be preparing to field an offer from the Toronto Maple Leafs involving Tomas [more…]
Though the news in Leaf Nation has been relatively quiet of late, there have been a few intriguing storylines making the rounds. Joel Champagne will re-enter the draft, Nik Kulemin and the Maple Leafs have hit a contract impasse, Tomas Kaberle is reportedly gathering interest from a number of teams, and a member of the Toronto media raised a few eyebrows with a blog post regarding the relationship between Dion Phaneuf and Ron Wilson.
It seems the "Kaberle to Columbus for the 4th overall pick" speculation is picking up some steam. Aaron Portzline, the Blue Jackets beat writer for [more…]
While the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs are in full swing and continue to provide us with some fantastic moments of triumph, the fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs are now forced to once again shift their focus to off ice activities.
And so too has Leafs brass.
Despite his team sitting on the sidelines, Leafs GM Brian Burke made quick work of two signing he was keying in on, signing goaltenders Jonas Gustavsson and newcomer Jussi Rynnas to contracts. Â Continuing with the in-house theme, Burke will now certainly turn his attention to Nikolai Kulemin, if he hasn't done so already.
And while we are seemingly quite far away this point, it won't be long before the draft and subsequent free agency period rolls around.
As you are no doubt well aware, the NHL draft lottery will be held tonight in New York to determine the order of the 14 non-playoff teams heading into the June 25-26 draft in Los Angeles. You can catch coverage of the lottery at 8pm on TSN.
Update
And the winner is ... Edmonton. Â Leafs fans, prepare yourselves to endure "Kessel Trade" debates for the better part of the next decade.
Unrelated Update: New signing Brayden Irwin to play tomorrow night against Atlanta (link).
#36 in Blue and White is proving to be everything his number-sake Anton Stralman never became in Toronto. Hear me out, Andrew R.
The Torontosaurus Rex for Week 23 is fitting and also notoriously absent from the only Leafs extra time loss in the last seven overtime/shootout games. In that loss, the Maple Leafs and Penguins tied a dubious NHL record, one night after the Leafs/Rangers surpassed 100 overtime games in the NHL this season.
The Leafs are looking to post their third straight win as they roll into Pittsburgh for this Sunday afternoon tilt. On the surface, this may seem like a run-of-the-mill Sunday game as there is no obvious importance in a matchup between the defending Stanley cup champs and our basement-dwelling team. However, there are a multitude of underlying storylines that should make this a very interesting game. [more…]
Pride, youthful enthusiasm, new contracts and job opportunities for next season continue to provide more than enough hop in the Leaf step as they look to make it eight wins in their last ten and seven in their last eight at home when they play host to the Rangers at the ACC tonight.
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