It’s always rare to have a Leafs hockey Saturday, assuming they’re still playing. It probably doesn’t seem strange in the month of May not to watch the Leafs on a Saturday night, but given the way the series has gone so far having a day off again to engage or hopefully one day for Sergey Bobrovsky to get out of any territory could be useful. I’m sure we’ve all had thoughts at one time or another where we’ve seen Toronto reach the second round only to be swept. I didn’t think we would actually live it or live it at the hands of the Florida Panthers. There is still time for Leafs to right their ship, but not much of it.
Opportunities must come from outside the Big Four
So far in the playoffs, Ryan O’Reilly ranks 15th among Leafs players when it comes to 5-on-5-all-60 shots. Kale Jarnkreuk is 20, behind only Erik Gustafsson. Jarnkrok and O’Reilly, along with the most anticipated Noel Acciari, are at the bottom of the heap when it comes to Leafs forward with snaps, Corsi single and Fenwick solo, but the numbers for all three get even better when you look at their predictable single goals, Corsi high risk , or opportunities to register. In short, they still make a high percentage of plays but they just haven’t generated as much as you would hope to see from your top nine forwards.
Alex Kerfoot is another player who should be in the top nine forwards that you can get into this mess and although he’s a much deeper option it’s still hard to say what Sam Lafferty is supposed to add to this group as well and Michael Ponting only has one point in Playoffs, though it’s worth noting that there are at least opportunities for him.
With Knies out, it gets tougher, and while I’m not saying the Leafs core Four shouldn’t be better against the Panthers, the rest of the Leafs forward group to apply a little bit of pressure as well.
There are no stage bonuses for Leafs
We have confirmed that 15 teams will incur the Performance Bonus next season due to players receiving bonuses this season!
A summary appears with each surplus team, ranging from $4.5M (BOS) to $20K (STL, WSH) 👇https://t.co/3B8UOBLIyt pic.twitter.com/ulg8wCTJNN
– CapFriendly (CapFriendly) May 4, 2023
In some good news for next season, the Leafs will have their entire cap space to work with as there won’t be any performance bonuses leaking into next year. And in even better news, the Boston Bruins will be one of the teams most affected by the relocation with the $4.5 million cap hit. The Bruins will have approximately $6 million to sign or replace Jeremy Swayman, Patrice Bergeron, David Krecji, Nick Foligno, Dmitri Orlov, Tyler Bertuzzi, Garnett Hathaway, and more. The Bruins only have 6 forwards and 1 goalkeeper under contract for next season so they will almost certainly downgrade and require some additional players to be fired. Prepare the little violin.
The Canadiens are another Atlantic team with a notable carryover cap and that’s also flattering because all of the remaining cap space will likely be spent on Cole Cofield’s next contract. All eggs should be in the al-Shabaab basket next year, but I will avoid laughing at their situation until after the draft lottery.
The referee/management game is a sideshow at best
I’m usually pretty quiet when it comes to complaining about an appointment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolute disaster, but in general I work under the idea that game management and game management is an epidemic on the NHL affecting every team equally, so I ignore that. I definitely want to do that now and not complete “The Referees Are Out For Leaves” here, but I feel like I’m going to dance over that line a few times especially when you look at what happened.
First, let’s start with a more rational general meaning. The fact that the most talked about on any given night in the playoffs are missed calls, the low penalty for plays involving injuries, soft make-up calls to balance penalties or to give the trailing team a fighting chance, and the extra. A five-minute major revisions sideshow. The NHL refuses to let their skill game shine and bring in new fans and instead we’re stuck watching players try to elbow each other’s heads, we see a two-minute penalty for it, and the team that took the initial penalty is quietly rewarded. Call moments later to balance the penalty book. Do you think NHL teams don’t know about the penalty kick book?
Florida Panthers head coach Paul Morris with a sneaky reminder to referees Kelly Sutherland and Trevor Hanson of penalty kicks during Game 1 against the Maple Leafs. #FLAvSTOR #Forever_papers #TimeToHunt pic.twitter.com/hUDqLhXCnP
Referee poll (ScoutingTheRefs) May 3, 2023
With running the game alive and well, teams seem to be very comfortable playing outside the rules when they know there is an imbalance. God forbid, the referees are required to answer a penalty of 5 to 1 when one of the parties has clearly justified the position. Sadly, that’s where we are and in the era of Gary Bateman I wouldn’t count on it changing so expect it to be a regular part of life and the playoffs will continue to suffer because of that.
Look at that, I was able to get through it without talking too much about the leaves and sounding like a pure conspiracy theorist. So on that note, I’ll just say it’s best that we don’t see Wes McCauley referee another Leafs game in this playoffs.