And while we realize Brooks was probably in that conversation anyway, the notion became a little more official on Thursday when the Leafs announced they have signed the 24-year-old Winnipeg native to a two-year, two-way contract with an annual average value of $725,000 US.
Brooks got his feet wet in the National Hockey League this past December and January, playing in seven games for the Leafs and recording three assists.
In 29 games with the Toronto Marlies, Brooks had 20 points (nine goals and 11 assists).
“He got his first taste of the NHL this year and it was really impressive to see him thrive within those opportunities,” Marlies coach Greg Moore said earlier this week. “When he came back you could also see a level of confidence that he gained from that experience.”
A fourth-round pick by the Leafs in 2016 (92nd overall), Brooks has compiled 79 points in 147 regular-season games with the Marlies. He has 14 points in 33 career playoff games, including six in 20 when the Marlies won the Calder Cup in 2018.https://www.youtube.com/embed/GKWKVn7kAnI?
The NHL is moving ahead with the notion that they will be able to finish the 2019-20 season. The new wrinkle is that commissioner Gary Bettman, in talks with the NHLPA has moved on from the idea that the NHL will be able to complete the regular season. The season would begin with the Stanley […]
Erik Karlsson is mindful of the playoff and Stanley Cup aspirations of other players around the NHL but doesn’t see much reason for the Sharks to come back and try to finish what’s left of the regular season. While commissioner Gary Bettman is optimistic the NHL can restart play at some point this summer, the…
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on Tuesday afternoon dismissed any notion that the league will not be able to resume its season and award the Stanley Cup at some point in the next several months. Appearing as a guest late in a virtual town hall hosted by the San Jose Sharks for members of its business…
When Kyle Dubas was promoted to general manager of the Maple Leafs two years ago, he made an observation during the club’s news conference at what was then the Air Canada Centre. Read More
When Kyle Dubas was promoted to general manager of the Maple Leafs two years ago, he made an observation during the club’s news conference at what was then the Air Canada Centre.
“We enter into another part of our journey, which is to reach our ultimate goal of contending perennially to be fighting at this time for the Stanley Cup,” Dubas said. “Instead of sitting here.”
That was on May 11, 2018.
In the short time since, the Leafs haven’t had much of an opportunity to put some substance behind those words, losing in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs to the Boston Bruins last spring before getting themselves to third place (again) in the Atlantic Division when the COVID-19 global pandemic caused the NHL to pause its regular season on March 12.
For Dubas and the Leafs, it’s about what comes next, even if no one knows when there will be an opportunity to play games again and what the outcomes of those games will be.
Fact is, Dubas has had the kind of initial run as an NHL general manager one might expect from someone who has not yet had his 35th birthday. There have been hiccups along the way, but Dubas hasn’t come untracked from his vision of putting together a fast, puck-hungry team that has possession at the top of its to-do list at each opening faceoff.
Within 16 months of taking over, Dubas charted the course of the Leafs with the signings (in order) of John Tavares, William Nylander, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner to long-term contracts. The Nylander talks didn’t follow a smooth process, something Dubas lamented later; after signing with minutes to spare on Dec. 1, 2018, Nylander was a non-factor for the remainder of the 2018-19 season. That was forgotten by the prolific way in which Nylander played before the pause, scoring 31 goals in 68 games.
Matthews, who has the ability to take aim at 50 goals a season for the next decade, and Marner, whose playmaking talents have put him at better than a point-a-game pace for the past two season, are the envy of most teams across the NHL.
As captain, Tavares is the leader that binds the club. Point is, it’s a solid quartet of players to have as the majority of the nucleus.
The catch, of course, is to what extent the commitment of more than $40-million US to four players will impact the roster going forward. That was part of the conversation well before the coronavirus pandemic threw future schedules into question and the adverse effect the stoppage of games is expected to have on the salary cap.
Three integral players — goaltender Frederik Andersen, defenceman Morgan Rielly and forward Zach Hyman — will command significant raises once their current contracts expire. Andersen and Hyman are slated to become unrestricted free agents after the 2020-21 season while Rielly follows a year later.
The promotion of Sheldon Keefe to head coach last November after the firing of Mike Babcock crucially put Dubas in lockstep with his coach. There’s a shared vision now and count on Keefe, under whom there were steps forward, to have a greater influence once he can guide the team with a benefit of training camp rather than taking over seven weeks into a season.
Dubas probably wouldn’t mind another crack at certain decisions he has made in the past couple of years, but there aren’t many NHL GMs who would look back and claim to be completely satisfied.
The Leafs appear to have shored up their backup goaltending with the acquisition of Jack Campbell in February. The mess at the position had its roots in Dubas choosing to go with the unproven (in the NHL) Garret Sparks instead of Curtis McElhinney coming out of camp in 2018. Sparks didn’t last the season after McElhinney, a stalwart the previous year, was claimed off waivers by the Carolina Hurricanes. Michael Hutchinson didn’t excel in the role either.
Neither Tyson Barrie, who is likely to depart via free agency once 2019-20 is done, nor Alex Kerfoot were glowing in their initial months as Leafs after they came east in the trade that sent Nazem Kadri to Colorado.
A team that had just a three-point lead on a playoff spot when the season was halted, as the Leafs did on the Florida Panthers, remains a work in progress.
Any proper judgment of Dubas can’t be made until the Leafs have had chances to prove themselves, and to prove his construction of the team was the correct one, in the playoffs.
We do know that holding news conferences in late April or early May and trying to project what might come in the following season won’t be acceptable.
The NHL’s “Return to Play” committee continues to meet by phone and Zoom and whatever means necessary to attempt to tackle forever-in-flux issues, a task not unlike trying to catch the wind.
Nobody questions the will of both the players and owners to award a Stanley Cup at some point this summer, but is there a way?
That’s a far tougher puzzle to solve. Still, the NHL’s “Return to Play” committee continues to meet by phone and Zoom and whatever means necessary to attempt to tackle forever-in-flux issues, a task not unlike trying to catch the wind.
The discussions start with basic questions: Can we resume play? How? When? Where? And they discuss the problems with each.
Can they resume play? Not yet.
How? By skipping the remaining regular-season games and having 24 teams in a playoff tournament, with the bottom teams among them playing their way into the field, according to Larry Brooks of the New York Post.
When? Too early to say, but getting later by the day.
Where? I’ve been told that the most recent flavor of the day has centered on having the games played at anywhere from two to four host cities.
The first problem: How to transport players from all over the globe to the host cities. What travel restrictions must be overcome? At the moment, anyone entering Canada from another country, including the United States, must quarantine for 14 days. So if training camp is 10 days, don’t you actually need to block off 24 days before playing a game? The quarantine rule could be lifted soon, but what does “soon” mean, and does it mean permanently lifted?
And then there is the issue of testing the players, referees, stadium-operations staff, club officials, etc., for the coronavirus. Which tests will they use? Do we even know if there are any reliable tests on the market? Anecdotal evidence makes me ask that question: Facebook friend and former USA Today baseball writer Mel Antonen, battling COVID-19 for weeks, posted Sunday, two days before he was taken to the emergency room: “Getting negative and positive tests, but the way I feel, the negatives feel more accurate. I’m going to be fine, but there are glitches.”about:blank
New disease, new tests, new possible treatments, a lot of learning as we go. What applies today might not tomorrow.
In the early stages of the virus invading the United States, NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci, said during a video interview with USA Today: “You don’t need to be walking around with a mask right now. Masks, quite frankly, are more important for people who are infected to prevent them from infecting someone else.”
That thinking has changed, and to go out in public without one now in some places is to put oneself at risk of getting fined, not to mention being on the receiving end of dirty looks. I went for a walk Friday and was carrying a mask, ready to put it on if I came within 10 feet of another walker. A masked man from across the street spotted me, stopped dead in his tracks, made an exaggerated sign of the cross and said a prayer for me. Since his lips were covered with a mask, I couldn’t read them, so I’ll have to guess: “Dear Lord, please give this ignorant slug the courage to table all common sense and take his every marching order from the authorities. If there is one thing we don’t need at this time, it’s people thinking for themselves.”
Hockey players won’t be required to wear masks on the ice, but will they have to wear them when walking from their hotel to the arena? What might someone who recognizes Brad Marchand have to say to him that he could use as fuel for that day’s game? If the hotel is too far, surely gathering in the close quarters of a team bus wouldn’t be allowed, right? Will each player rent his own car and get to and from his workplace that way? And after the game is played in an empty arena, where several teams per day will play, is showering out of the question? Will they have to walk or drive back to the hotel in uniform to shower there?
Who will feed them? Someone will have to wash their clothes, not just their uniforms, but the clothes they wear when not at the arena.
If Major League Baseball is up and running at the same time, how will regional TV scheduling conflicts be addressed?
That shouldn’t be a problem for national TV if the Stanley Cup playoffs are taking place from July 24 through Aug. 9. NBC was supposed to be televising the Olympic Games then, so there should be plenty of programming slots available. Despite the strange vibe that comes with no fans in the stands, ratings likely would be great. Even sports fans new to hockey might tune in and get hooked.
Unlike in baseball, where the owners and players would have to renegotiate contracts in a way that motivates both sides to want to return, that’s not a problem with hockey. The players and owners work under a salary cap with what’s known as a “true-up of revenues.”
So they’re joined at the hip.
Say a player has a $1 million salary. If the revenues fall short of anticipated, after all the salaries are combined together, the player might end up only getting $850,000. Or, if revenues end up being more than anticipated against the dollar level that’s in a player’s contract, he would get a check for more money than his salary. In the early years of the salary cap the latter scenario tended to happen, but for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the weakening of the Canadian dollar, that hasn’t been the case in recent years.
So it’s good that the two sides don’t have to argue over how the money will be divided. Normally, that would be considered a big hurdle, but these are not normal circumstances.
That brings us right back to where we started. There’s a shared, strong will to return to play NHL games, all right, but is there a way?
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Gerry Cheevers believes the Boston Bruins’ bright present will reap future glory. The Bruins legend predicted Thursday in a virtual town hall with season ticket holders the team would win the Stanley Cup Final in the near future. “It’s obviously a great franchise,” Cheevers said, according to NHL.com’s Amalie Benjamin. “Just stick by them. They’re going…
Gerry Cheevers believes the Boston Bruins’ bright present will reap future glory. The Bruins predicted Thursday in a virtual town hall with season ticket holders the team would win the Stanley Cup Final in the near future. “It’s obviously a great franchise,” Cheevers said, according to NHL.com’s Amalie Benjamin. “Just stick by them. They’re going to win the Cup soon.” Cheevers based his prediction on the enduring quality of the Bruins’ front office and players. “They’ve done a great job, that organization,” he said. “I don’t know what the format’s going to be or what’s going to happen. You (drafted) a guy like Patrice Bergeron (in 2003) — when I still worked for the Bruins (as a scout) … — and Zdeno Chara. I worked with Tuukka (Rask) a little bit. These are good people. The Bruins have done a good job in hiring and signing and recruiting classy players and certainly Patrice Bergeron is the A-1 example of that. And you like being associated with people like that.” The Bruins rebounded from last season’s Stanley Cup Final heartbreak nicely in 2019-20. They were leading the NHL after 70 games with 100 points when the season paused in March. Cheevers seemingly has faith the high-performing group will recover their place atop the NHL heap when the players return from hiatus the coronavirus outbreak prompted. And the Hockey Hall of Famer knows a thing or two about what makes a winning team. He played for the Bruins between 1967 and 1972 and between 1975 and 1980, winning two Stanley Cup Final with the big, bad B’s in the process.
The Winnipeg NHLer at the centre of a social media group chat that degraded women has been released by his team.
Brendan Leipsic played 61 games for the Washington Capitals this past season, but this week became embroiled in a firestorm of controversy which came to a head on Friday morning.
“The Washington Capitals have placed Brendan Leipsic on unconditional waivers for purposes of terminating his contract,” the NHL team said in a statement.
The move comes after the Capitals and NHL on Wednesday denounced the actions of players involved in an Instagram group chat that defiled and mocked women, referred to their conquests as “kills,” made fun of their shapes and boasted of Leipsic’s use of cocaine.
“There is no place in our league for such statements, attitudes and behaviour, no matter the forum,” the NHL had said.
The chat, which dated back several months and was intended to be private, was made public by an anonymous Instagram user who wanted the women made aware of the misogynists involved in it.
The chat included several products of the Winnipeg minor hockey system, including Jack Rodewald, who played for Florida’s AHL team this past season, and Leipsic’s brother, Jeremey.
Jeremey Leipsic, 23, was released from the University of Manitoba Bisons hockey team on Thursday.
Two of the women targetted in the chat told the Winnipeg Sun of the humiliation they faced when it became public.
“It’s very heartbreaking to see,” Winnipeg’s Chloe Giesbrecht, 24, said. “You see hockey on TV… (players) signing hockey sticks and taking photos, but what are they doing behind all of that? They’re supposed to be role models, and this is the exact opposite. The exact opposite of what you would want your son to be like.
“If people keep practising that, this is just going to be a continuous cycle of these group chats and this misogynistic hockey culture.”
Another woman who didn’t want her name used said even if the players lost their jobs, it wouldn’t make her feel any better.
“It’s not banter. It’s not funny. It’s harmful,” she said. “And there are people who won’t take this well and it will have lasting psychological consequences. Some women got really attacked in there.”
Brendan Leipsic, 25, was in his third full season in the NHL. He’d already been traded twice, put on waivers and left unprotected in the Las Vegas expansion draft.
Drafted by Nashville in the third round in 2012, he was traded to Toronto in 2015, claimed by the Golden Knights in 2017, traded to Vancouver in 2018 and claimed off waivers by the L.A. Kings the same year.
Washington signed him last summer to a one-year deal worth $700,000.0
Each day during the sports pause stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, NESN.com will publish a diary full of random thoughts, opinions, takeaways, and other cool tidbits we’ve stumbled across in the absence of actual games. Because why not? We’re all in this together. If you never heard of Brendan Leipsic, chances are that changed Wednesday.…
Memo to those pockets of Leafs Nation wringing their hands because the Maple Leafs have signed a defenceman who just happens to shoot left.
It comes from Mikko Lehtonen himself.
“Doesn’t matter, right or left side, I am OK with both,” Lehtonen said during a conference call with reporters on Monday. “Actually, sometimes I like more (the) right side.”
Fact is, the Leafs have brought aboard a player who should make an impact no matter where he eventually lines up on the blue line. Thanks to determination from Jim Paliafito, the Leafs’ senior director of player evaluation who has helped the club sign several players out of Europe, including most recently Alexander Barabanov and Ilya Mikheyev, Toronto was able to beat the NHL competition to sign Lehtonen to a one-year, $925,000 US entry-level contract for the 2020-21 season.
Lehtonen led Jokerit of the KHL in scoring this past season (as well as the league’s defencemen), putting up 49 points (17 goals and 32 assists) in 60 games. Regarded as one of the top defencemen in Europe, Lehtonen has the ability to run the power play, but more immediately, fits into the mould the Leafs have in mind for their blueliners. He’s a heads-up skater who reads the play well.
“I’m a two-way defenceman who can skate and move the puck,” Lehtonen said. “My game should fit pretty well with Toronto because they want to skate well and those are my strengths.”
Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas, who went to scout Lehtonen at the Karjala Cup in Helsinki last year following Paliafito’s positive reports, joined Lehtonen on the call.
“I agree with Mikko 100% why it’s a fit for us and for him,” Dubas said. “It’s the way he plays and the way we want to play.
“With regard to whether he will play the left or right side, it’s such a hard thing to answer right now. It would be easier if our season was over and we knew where we were at. We want to hopefully get back and finish our season and evaluate things from there and determine whether we want to try him on both sides, but I think the versatility certainly helps.”
Lehtonen and Jokerit mutually agreed late last week to terminate his contract so he could get a crack at the NHL. A native of Turku, Finland, Lehtonen never was drafted by an NHL club.
Lehtonen played in the 2020 KHL all-star game and was named the league’s defenceman of the month in November, December and January.
At the international level, Lehtonen has represented Finland several times, including at the 2018 Winter Olympics, the world championship in 2017 and 2019 and the 2014 world junior championship. He won gold at the ’19 worlds, making the tournament all-star team.
It’s going to be intriguing to see where the six-foot, 196-pound Lehtonen finds his stride with the Leafs. Once what remains of the 2019-20 season is done — whether it’s the regular season and playoffs, just the playoffs, or cancellation in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic — Tyson Barrie and Cody Ceci will be unrestricted free agents. Travis Dermott is going to be a restricted free agent.
For 2020-21, the lone right-handed shot under contract in the defence corps is Justin Holl, though Timothy Liljegren could be in the mix as well.
What does Dubas think of his defence group as a whole now?
“It’s always a big topic of conversation,” Dubas said. “We know we’re going to have Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, Holl, we’re going to be able to bring back Dermott, who will be a restricted free agent, and you have our younger guys in Rasmus Sandin and Liljegren and Teemu Kivihalme and Calle Rosen and so on, and then you have the decisions on Ceci and Barrie.
“We like our options, but it’s certainly an area we need to see progress in, whether it’s the development of Dermott, development of Sandin and Liljegren, or the acquisition of players like Mikko. We like the group and we’re looking forward to seeing it play healthy.”
Already known in this city for their exemplary charity contributions, the Calgary Flames captain and his wife have been reaching out to various families and meeting some of their needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The word started circulating of Mark and Lauren Giordano’s latest acts of kindness.
Already known in this city for their exemplary charity contributions, the Calgary Flames captain and his wife have been reaching out to various families and meeting some of their needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Calgary woman posted on Facebook of her interaction with someone who worked for Giordano, indicating that he’d like to buy her groceries at Walmart; something he and his wife had been doing to help out the community.
In her post, the woman said her grocery bill came to $430.
“I am in still (sic) shock what just happened,” she wrote on Facebook.
Flames general manager Brad Treliving confirmed the Giordanos gesture, which exemplifies the captain’s leadership and his better half’s selfless nature.
“They are unbelievable,” Treliving said. “The last thing he’s going to do is publicize that. Paying for groceries is just one of the things he’s done in the last six weeks to help this community. He’s not going to blow his own horn — I’ll blow it for him. They’ve been active in finding out — and Lauren’s been unbelievable — the needs people have. Someone was looking for a computer so they went out and got them one and delivered it. They’ve done unbelievable work. And he’s never going to tell you about it.
Jaroslav Halak will be back for a third season in Boston. The Bruins’ backup goalie was a pending unrestricted free agent this offseason, but the team on Friday announced they signed him to an extension for the 2020-21 season. He’ll make $2.25 million next season, a slight bump down from the $2.75 million per year…
The view from left field 