Resting Leafs, line juggling and the salary cap: Leaflets

Less than a month until meaningful hockey. It shouldn’t have to be this way. It would be nice if there were something beyond avoiding injuries and roster optimization left to care about for the season, but that’s not how it works. I guess it could always be worse than being a team that has been locked into your playoff opponent since late December, you could be a team that hasn’t had a sniff of the playoffs all year, and then really, after the trade deadline what are you tuning in for? So rather than going completely negative on there still being 14 games left to play, I’ll embrace this wild ride through lineup card construction that will likely lead us back to something very familiar to us in time for the playoffs.
5 Player Units
While Sheldon Keefe is exploring what works and what doesn’t when it comes to his lineup card, I wouldn’t mind seeing him dust off the old Soviet tactic of having five player units that head out together rather than running forward lines and defense pairings separately. To some extent, the Leafs are already trying to do this as much as possible as there isn’t much point in putting Morgan Rielly on …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Eyes on Knies, Grebyonkin’s great season, Tverberg on the board: Leafs Prospect Roundup

We are now less than a week away from the NHL trade deadline, and with the Leafs having already taken their big swing with the Ryan O’Reilly trade, the focus has shifted from whether or not top prospect Matthew Knies could be on the move to if and when he’s going to sign with Toronto.
Knies and the Gophers wrapped up their regular season schedule with a weekend set against #3 Ohio State. After a relatively quiet one-assist showing in Friday’s win, he was in the middle of everything on Saturday.
Things didn’t start off so great as Knies was assessed a five-minute major for checking to the head in the first period, and linemate Jimmy Snuggerud earned a five-minute major of his own. The infractions allowed Ohio State to get out to a two-goal lead early in the second, but Knies and his linemates made amends and then some.
After Sabres prospect Aaron Huglen brought the Gophers within one, Minnesota’s top trio got to work and quickly tied the game. Logan Cooley made a heads-up play in the neutral zone to spring Snuggerud for a clean entry down the right wing, and sensing an opportunity, Knies darted past his man to the far post, arriving at the per …

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Author: Nick Richard / The Leafs Nation

away from less than trade Week

Previewing The Farm Rosters: Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats

I’ll take up less space with the prelude this time since I established the premise in the previous article. Using Scott Mitchell’s Top 50 at TSN, I’m attempting to project where the most interesting prospects will break camp in less than 60 days.

Between his Top 50 list, and his “just missed” group, no less than 16 of the names he dropped look likely to start with the Fisher Cats including of course the name on everyone’s list, consensus #1 in the system, LHP Ricky Teidemann.
Teidemann was handled cautiously in his first season, and while he was so very good that speculation about making it onto the Jays’ roster this summer is natural, such an ascent would be even more remarkable than Alek Manoah’s in 2021.
In his draft year, at age 21, Manoah hauled 135 innings between college and the Jays system. Teideman threw 38 in college in 2021 and 78 for the Jays in 2022, with a significant slowdown period throughout most of July as a 19-year-old most of the season. Manoah was in his age-23 season when he came up for good. It’s much more likely that he gets 8-10 starts (40-50 IP) for New Hampshire and moves up to Buffalo at some point in June and goes another 80 or so. That’ll set him up to compete for a spot in the rotation in the Spring of ’24.
Speaking of… a mild tangent: between Manoah and long-term contracts, the Blue Jays have four rotation turns locked …

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Author: Tammy Rainey / Blue Jays Nation

I’ll less prelude space take with

Dubas’ silence is golden, and the importance of Rielly: Leaflets

We are now on day three of no Leafs hockey. It’s now less than a week to go until the Leafs are back at it against the Blue Jackets. And we are now under four weeks until the NHL trade deadline. It seems like the perfect time to get into some Saturday morning Leafs takes.
The lack of information that comes out of the Leafs front office
I’m sure that Kyle Dubas loves the fact that the trade deadline reporting on the Leafs is that they are very much in on a forward. Or a defenseman. Or both. The fact that no one can nail down what the Leafs priorities are and that insiders are left to desperately speculate on what the Leafs could be up to makes Kyle’s job a lot easier.
One of the reasons this has to be a win for Dubas is that pretty much everyone with an audience would be dissecting why his target isn’t right for Toronto or why the price should be so much higher than Toronto is willing to pay. Understandably the second that Toronto gets attached to a player in a rumour it’s probably simpler to just move on to someone else rather than refine the deal as anyone that Toronto is lookin …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Hockey It's Leafs’ less than Three

10 Things to consider about the Leafs and the trade deadline

We are less than five weeks from the trade deadline. It feels like we are at least halfway through the nonsense that starts around the beginning of the calendar year and so far has yielded just a Ryan Merkley/Matt Nieto trade. It’s an interesting time that never lives up to the hype that goes into it, but the trade deadline is the last barrier between Leafs fans and confronting the existential dread that is playoff time, so admittedly I try to enjoy it even knowing that it will be underwhelming.
There are a lot of quantitative elements that go into the trade deadline and throwing mass quantities of numbers at you about random players on random lottery teams is fun, but today I thought I’d just ramble on about 10 qualitative things that warrant a bit of discussion heading into the trade deadline as well.
1. If a player’s numbers say they are playing badly, trust the numbers
There is always a belief that the player that you want the Leafs to acquire who is having a down year is having that down year because they are playing on a bad team. There is one major flaw in this way of thinking and that’s the obvious, “what if the player I like i …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Five from less than trade week’s

Another starting pitcher is off the market, as the San Francisco Giants sign Sean Manaea, plus what it could mean for the Carlos Rodón sweepstakes

Well, writing two of these articles in less than two days isn’t what I wanted to do, but here I am.

According to Jon Heyman, the San Francisco Giants have signed left-handed pitcher Sean Manaea to a two-year, $25,000,000 with an opt-out.

Sean Manaea to Giants. $25M, 2 years. Opt out.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 12, 2022

The Blue Jays were never linked to the 30-year-old lefty, but he was an interesting name for a bounce-back season. Manaea struggled in 2022, posting a 4.96 ERA and 4.53 FIP in 158 innings pitched with the Padres. He had an average K% of 23.2% and a 7.5 BB%.
However, Manaea has solid career totals, owning a 4.06 ERA and 4.07 FIP in 885 innings pitched. His 2022 K% actually surpassed his career 21.6 K%, but his 2022 BB% was higher than his career 6.2 BB%.
Again, the Jays were never connected to Manaea, and it seemed unlikely they’d want to sign a bounce-back candidate when they already employ Yusei Kikuchi and Mitch White on the 2023 roster. However, there may be some alternative ramifications.
Another potential ramification:
The Giants were (and may still be) a front-runner to sign Carlos Rodón. With the signing of a different left-handed pitcher, have they given up the chase? It wouldn’t be a bad thing… except that the Yankees are seen as the other front-runner to sign Rodón. The Cardinals have also appeared as a mystery team, so that’s something.

There’s a mystery team in on Rodon, and it’s believed to be the Cardinals (so maybe it’s not such a great mystery after all) #mysteryteam
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 11, 2022

I don’t think you need me to tell you that if the Yankees sign Rodón, that puts a wre …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

articles less than these Well writing

Key injuries, Kuznetsov suspended and Sharks eyeing Bedard: NHL Notebook

Less than two weeks into the regular season and injuries are already piling up. Over the last week several key players hit their respective injured lists, a Washington Capitals forward was suspended, and the San Jose Sharks took the lead in the race for Connor Bedard.
Landeskog knee surgery
The Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche will be without their captain Gabriel Landeskog for the next 12 weeks after his second knee surgery of the year. He missed the last quarter of the 2021-22 season for the same reason before joining the team for their playoff run.
He was held out of the first three games with a lower body injury and ultimately they decided another surgery was necessary.
Red Wings injuries
Tyler Bertuzzi will miss the next four to six weeks after blocking a shot against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday. This a massive blow for a young Wings team with playoff aspirations. Bertuzzi was second on the team with 62 points last season.
His teammate Jakub Vrana is also away from the team for personal reasons. There has been no timetable given for his return. Detroit will need depth players to step up with the absence of two top-six forwards. Pius Suter and Filip Zadina have joined the lineup after being healthy scratches early on.
Ekblad groin s …

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Author: Scott Ony / The Leafs Nation

into less regular season than week’s

Around the NHL: the Johnny Gaudreau sweepstakes, Evgeni Malkin stays home and Matt Murray to the Leafs

Free agency is set to begin in less than 12 hours, and everybody is wondering where will Johnny Gaudreau end up. While Gaudreau is the most exciting unrestricted free agent to hit the market since John Tavares, there are several other intriguing players available in all price ranges.
We have also seen a few high profile trades in the past seven days and plenty of rumours surrounding other quality players who could be on the move.
Free Agency
As mentioned above Gaudreau is the top unrestricted free agent available. After eight seasons in Calgary, he has informed the Flames organization that he will not be returning. It has been reported that this is solely a family decision. Gaudreau would like to move closer to home as he is expecting a baby.
The New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers have been the most common destinations linked to Gaudreau and it seems both the Devils and Islanders are prepared to offer him long-term deals north of nine million per season.
Philadelphia is the closest geographic location to where Gaudreau grew up and his childhood team. They also have his close friend and former college teammate Kevin Hayes locked up for four more seasons. However, they do not currently have anywhere near enough cap space to …

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Author: Scott Ony / The Leafs Nation

agency begin free hours less than