‘We have to do the digging’: Marlies looking to get past adversity as playoffs approach

The Toronto Marlies are trying to claw their way out of a rut with only eight games remaining in the regular season.
It’s been a rough stretch for the team in their last five games. At times, they’ve dominated play — looking like the team they’ve been all season — until they haven’t.
Toronto has been outscored 18-4 during this five-game losing streak, even being shut out twice in that span. It’s a bout with adversity that the team hasn’t faced all year while dominating the AHL’s North Division.
“At any point, during the season when you go through adverse moments as a team you come out on the other side eventually and you dig your way out, and you learn lessons from it.” Said Marlies head coach Greg Moore.
“We’re still in it right now. We have to do the digging.”
This is uncharted territory for this Marlies team. Only 24 times this season have they lost a game, with 19 of those losses coming in regulation. The rest of their games — 40 to be exact — have been wins, placing them third in the entire AHL in that category.
For a team that’s won this many games in one season, and having a playoff spot locked down, you’d think a five-game …

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Author: Nick Barden / The Leafs Nation

Some Spring Training Stats That Matter and Also Some That Don’t

With Spring Training coming to a close it’s time to take a look at what happened in these games and if there is anything meaningful that comes from them and what they might mean for the upcoming season.

A good rule of thumb is Spring stats don’t matter. It’s a month of games and players can get hot, especially when the competition isn’t always Major League calibre. What you want to see are a player’s skills and if those skills have changed. If a player comes into camp throwing harder as we saw with Jordan Romano in 2021, or hitting the ball harder as we saw with Santiago Espinal last year it could be the precursor to a big season.
Note Spring Stats as of March 26th and courtesy of Baseball Savant, unless otherwise specified. 
With that in mind, there is nothing to be taken from Bichette’s .314/.352/.529 Spring line. Baseball-Reference has an Opponent Quality metric to determine as the name says, the quality of the opposing batter or pitcher faced by a player. Bichette is at 7.3 meaning he has faced pitchers on a talent level roughly somewhere between AA and AAA. Bichette should be crushing this type of pitcher.
What is interesting about Bichette is he is hitting the ball hard as he normally does (92.7mph exit velocity), but he is hitting it almost exclusively on the ground. Last season Bichette had a launch angle of 8.5°, while in Spring Tra …

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Author: Paul Berthelot / Blue Jays Nation

3 trade deadline moves Jakob Poeltl has clearly outperformed

3 trade deadline moves Jakob Poeltl has clearly outperformed

The Toronto Raptors were met with a wave of quizzical looks when they traded away multiple draft picks, including a very lightly protected first-round pick, to re-acquire big man Jakob Poeltl. While he would help fix the team’s lack of rim protection, he would do nothing to repair the team’s lackluster 3-point percentage. After a […]
3 trade deadline moves Jakob Poeltl has clearly outperformed – Raptors Rapture – Raptors Rapture – A Toronto Raptors Fan Site – News, Blogs, Opinion and More

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Author: Mike Luciano / Raptors HQ

Expansion drafts are fun, 34 team leagues decidedly less so

There are a lot of fun things that go along with expansion. You get to wait for the team name, the logo, the jersey, there’s all the speculation that goes into the expansion draft and some fun roster fallout (or decidedly less fun if you briefly have Jared McCann on your roster and then lose him in favour of keeping Justin Holl.) Yeah, expansion has a lot of fun elements to it and expanding to 32 teams wasn’t the worst thing for the NHL. It gave the league a nice even divisional/conference balance and now half the league makes the playoffs and the other half doesn’t. Expanding to 32 teams was the next best thing to shrinking the league back down to 21 teams, 24 if you want a bit more of that conference/division symmetry.
Of course, the NHL apparently can’t leave well enough alone and looks be considering expansion again.

👀 🤐.@espn @NHL @NHLNetwork @TSNHockey @DKSportsbook #HockeyTwitter https://t.co/g8aLnSVQgJ
— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) March 5, 2023

At least we’ll assume that’s what the eyeballs from Kevin Weekes means. It’s great that he was able to take enough time to tag his favourite sportsbook but was too busy to add any context to the retweet.
Fortunately, plenty of others have been trying to add context to it and the NHL’s taken the first step towards expansion by denying that it is happening and that’s why it’s time to weigh in on this nonsense because in addition to the alluded to Houston and Atlanta locations above, people are taking the opportunity to talk about Quebec City and the most relevant of locations to a Leafs site, a second team being placed in Toronto.
We’ll save the Toronto thing for last and start with the painful suggestion of the NHL trying Atlanta for the third time. Much like how the NHL has a hard time letting go of the Phoenix market given its size and the success of sports leagues there, …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Leafs Rumours: Toronto looked into Erik Karlsson before the trade deadline

If you thought you were done with weekly rumours updates on this site after the trade deadline… you’ll eventually be right. For now, we have a bit of a rumour of something that could have been but wasn’t at the deadline. It’s via Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts citing that the Leafs were in on both Mattias Ekholm and Erik Karlsson.
Elliotte’s report is that the Leafs inquired about both players, but it couldn’t make cap sense for them. Ekholm ultimately went to Edmonton and Nashville only retained 4% of the contract in the process, and Erik Karlsson will finish his Norris calibre season in San Jose. That’s where it gets interesting.
Things won’t change for the Sharks after the season ends. They are still needing assets to rebuild and that’s their priority. Things won’t change for Karlsson too much either. He might not have a career year in the remaining four years of his contract, but he is still a premier offensive defenseman and one of the league’s best right-shot defensemen. His contract will take him until he’s 36 and he has a bit more of an injury history than say Mark Giordano, so there might be a steeper dropoff (there often is with elite skaters when age catches up to them), but he potentially still has a lot to offer, although with an $11.5M …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Prospect Mailbag: Leafs Prospect Roundup

Rather than sticking with our usual formula for the Leafs Prospect Roundup, where we recap what Toronto’s up-and-comers have been up to over the past week, we decided to switch things up this week and take questions on the Leafs’ prospect pool from our followers on Twitter.
We got a lot of great questions, so thank you to everyone who contributed. Let’s get to it!
From @mic_mazz: What can we realistically expect from Matthew Knies at the NHL level based on his play at the University of Minnesota thus far?
The Matthew Knies hype train started gaining steam early last season when he stepped in as a freshman for Minnesota and made an immediate impact. His play since then has done little to slow that hype train, but it’s important to manage expectations.
There simply aren’t a lot of players who step directly out of the NCAA and into prominent NHL roles. That’s not to say it isn’t possible for Knies to hit the ground running, but there is likely to be an adjustment period as he begins his pro career. The biggest hurdle that Knies could be facing in that adjustment period, at least this season, is that he will be left with very little runway if he does indeed sign to close out the NHL …

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Author: Nick Richard / The Leafs Nation

It’s report card day after the Leafs gave us a lot of trades to grade

It’s report card day after the Leafs gave us a lot of trades to grade

Here we are with another round of grade that trade. Everyone loves these posts, that’s why every site seems to do them. You can’t get enough. We can’t get enough. Well… I guess we could kinda get enough because, with the volume of trades the Leafs had yesterday, most of the TLN contributors were huddled in balls on the floor, rocking back and forth going “no more, no more.” It’s in that spirit that I’m largely taking over the grading myself today. I got some help with the Sandin deal, but I’m flying solo on the smaller ones. I promise to be nice to Luke Schenn, but we’ll save him for last.
Sandin to Washington for Gustafsson and Boston’s 2023 1st round pick: A
The second you say “first round pick” to me, I instantly like the trade. My brain still operates in a pre-2016 world where the idea of the Leafs accumulating 1st round picks is the goal of the season. Couple that with all the love letters written about this draft class and it’s nice to see Toronto back in the game.

Erik Gustafsson is no slouch either. Those aren’t sheltered 3rd pairing minutes that he’s been playing either, that’s a 20 minute a night defenseman that is doing well and is about to be slid into a role that is far more manageable for him. I’d argue the Leafs got the best asset with the pick, and the best defenseman in the deal with Gustafsson, and the Capitals are largely just banking on Sandin being more usable for them immediately and on par with what they’d get with a late first round pick.
In theory, everyone got what they wanted out of this deal, but from my perspective this is a big win for Toronto as it gives them a lot of flexibility for future moves and they’ve cashed out at the right time on a defenseman …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

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

Exploring whether or not the Leafs truly need more secondary scoring

Let’s start with the obvious answer to the title of this post: secondary scoring couldn’t hurt the Leafs. And let’s start with an obvious caveat that it couldn’t hurt the Leafs as long as their team defense doesn’t suffer due to bringing in more secondary scoring. If the Leafs could drop someone into their lineup tomorrow that would outperform Zach Aston-Reese offensively without having to give up his defensive zone play or his willingness to hit absolutely everything, the Leafs would probably make that upgrade.
Of course, it is more complicated than that, but it’s also worth taking a look at how the Leafs measure up when it comes to their secondary scoring and the challenges that come with that.
First let me establish what I’m using as my definition of primary, secondary, tertiary, and non-scorers.
Primary scorers are the top quarter of forwards in total points per sixty with a minimum of 25 games played. Secondary scorers will be that next quarter of forwards, Tertiary next, and finally your non-scorers make up the bottom group. It’s not the most in depth approach, but it’s simple. It considers all situations as well, and is largely meant to explore the simple idea that the Leafs need secondary scoring. …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Leafs fall 5-2 to the Bruins. Boston snaps three game losing streak: Game Highlights

Leafs fall 5-2 to the Bruins. Boston snaps three game losing streak: Game Highlights

The Leafs head into the all-star break with 5-2 loss to the Bruins on Wednesday night. It was spirited battle between two for the league’s top teams but ultimately the Bruins ended their three game skid and beat the Leafs for the second straight time. Below are the highlights from the game.
Ilya Samsonov kept the game scoreless early stopping Connor Clifton on the breakaway…

SAMMY 🗣SAMMY 🗣SAMMY 🗣 pic.twitter.com/Lh51XV3Ssx
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) February 2, 2023

Midway through the first Rasmus Sandin had a chance to put the Leafs up one but Linus Ullmark shut the door…

at that moment, Sandin’s eyes became dinner plates
good save by Ullmark pic.twitter.com/2f4Sxfd9gW
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) February 2, 2023

Late in the period David Pastrnak chipped the puck past Morgan Reilly to create a scoring chance. Samsonov continued his stellar play with a sprawling pad save…

his name is Ilya Samsonov pic.twitter.com/ruL9E7p3LU
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) February 2, 2023

The Leafs got their first powerplay early in the second but it was the Bruins who struck first. Charlie Coyle found Derek Forbort all alone and he buried the shorty to make it 1-0…

SHORTY ALERT. 🚨
Derek Forbort breaks the ice in the second period with this short-handed beauty. pic.twitter.com/pV86NgNaL8
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) February 2, 2023

Toronto redeemed themselves on the powerplay a few minutes later. Samsonov made a heads up pass to Mitch Marner, catching the Bruins on a line change. Marner walked in and sniped it blocker side to make it 1-1…

Sammy serving, again 🍽 pic.twitter.com/bK501pSrs0
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) February 2, 2023

The game wouldn’t stay tied for long as Brandon Carlo flipped one past Samsonov with 7:27 to go in the second frame…

Brando brought it 💯 pic.twitter.com/65WeVSDE6U
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) February 2, 2023

AJ Greer doubled the lead for Boston a couple minutes into the third. He fought off the David Kampf backcheck and wired a wrister top shelf to make it 3-1…

A top shelf tally by @ajgreer_10 extends the @NHLBruins lead. 🔝
📺: @Sportsnet ➡️ https://t.co/uEVY6yXLpz #NHLonSN pic.twitter.com/TPkb4iuaDH
— NHL (@NHL) February 2, 2023

On the ensuing faceoff Wayne Simmonds tried to spark the boys by dropping the gloves with Greer. Simmonds absolutely teed off, land …

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Author: Scott Ony / The Leafs Nation