It appears that Calle Jarnkrok, who hasn’t played this year due to having surgery to repair a sports hernia, will be back soon. He practiced with the team this week, which makes the idea of keeping him off the roster for another 27 games a tough task. This is something that a lot of fans weren’t betting on, due to being excited about the potential cap space that could be used with him on long term injured reserve. Based on the numbers I have, the Leafs aren’t over the cap ceiling with Jarnkrok coming off LTIR. In fact, they have about $875K in space to work with as the March 7th trade deadline approaches….. Oh!! The possibilities!! That number is based off of Alex Steeves being returned to the AHL Toronto Marlies, which will also be a requirement, considering Jarnkrok would bring the roster to 24 with Steeves on board.
The real wrench in the wheel this year could lie with Jani Hakanpaa. If he is able to play before the playoffs, his $1.47M caphit would put them above the cap limit and would force them to waive a player that has drawn in on the roster at least semi-regularly this year. We’re talking about players such as Pontus Holmberg, Ryan Reaves or Philippe Myers, as examples.
The best option, in terms of a player to waive if he does return, might be Hakanpaa himself. His knee issues are heavily publicized at this point, he has sat out a lot of the season and there’s no guarantee that his body could hold up for more than a game at a time. This means that no other team would likely pluck him off the waiver wire, which would allow him to be assigned to the Marlies, where he could play and continue to rehabilitate. It wouldn’t disturb the current roster and Hakanpaa could return for the playoffs, where there is no salary cap.
Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll should split the workload for the rest of the season. That would allow them both to be well rested, which would also allow them to avoid injury, hopefully. At this point in time Stolarz is the guy I’d look to when the puck drops in the 1st round of the playoffs.
The Leafs have 2 games in hand and they’re 3pts back from the division leading Florida Panthers. As the season unfolds it appears that if they don’t take over the top spot in the Atlantic, their 1st round opponent would be the Tampa Bay Lightning. That’s a tough matchup, as it always has been. The wild card race in the East is extremely tight, with 6-7 teams still vying for a spot, which makes it impossible to predict who they would face if they do win the division.
The 4 Nations Face Off…. the topic on hockey fans lips around the world, is set to end tonight with a championship game between the Canadians and Americans. The first game didn’t go the way the True North wanted, but I wouldn’t bet against them. The goaltending is easily in the Americans’ favour, but the firepower that Canada possesses is undeniable. It should be a great game to watch.
This is generally about the Leafs though, so we’ll talk about the 3 stars from the Buds that attended….. kinda. William Nylander ended the tournament with 2 assists in 3 games, while Auston Matthews has 1 assist in 3 games and Mitch Marner has 1 goal in 3 games. That’s a combined 1 goal and 4pts in 9 games, which seems about right for our pampered stars.
This is a culture problem within the room. When this rebuild began we heard management talk about keeping their star players safe…. presumably from media and fan scrutiny. They claimed to want to protect them from the pitfalls that made playing in Toronto undesirable for past generations and in doing so have created newer and sadder reasons for players to not want to play in Toronto. The first and saddest reason is that they simply aren’t a competitive team. In the regular season they are, sure, but none of the Leafs stars have the heart to lay it all on the line and fight for the Stanley Cup. They don’t sacrifice, it’s as easy as that.
What they can do is claim that they’re a great team. We’ve heard all 3 of those stars say it in front of a camera. However, great teams do great things and I can’t think of a single great thing that this group has accomplished. They haven’t won their division, they haven’t won a president’s trophy, they have won just a single round in 7 straight playoff appearances and a play-in round (which they lost, forcing them to miss the playoffs) and they haven’t had so much as a sniff at winning the Stanley Cup.
With Nylander out of the tournament and Matthews and Marner’s teams facing off against each other, one of the remaining stars are going to be a part of something great. They haven’t been a big part of that yet, but it wasn’t due to not having golden opportunities. Marner, especially, was handed a fantastic chance, as he was placed on a line with Connor McDavid and played the 2nd most minutes among forwards in games 1 and 2, behind only McDavid. In game 3, when they needed to win or else their tournament was over, the script was flipped and Marner found himself with the 2nd least amount of minutes among forwards, ahead of only Travis Konecny, who was suiting up for his 1st game of the tournament. That’s a damning endorsement from head coach Jon Cooper, in my opinion. When you need to win, don’t turn to #16.
I truly hope that Canada wins tonight, by way of a 3-2 score, where Marner has a hat trick and Matthews has a pair of goals, but dreams are just that and I expect both to be non-factors, for the most part.
More hopes. I hope that these two, the most important stars for the Toronto Maple Leafs, can soak in the competitive levels of the stars around them and realize that talent alone doesn’t win the Cup. There’s a laundry list of great players that have passed through the NHL and never won anything and they are at risk of joining that list because they can’t get out of their own way. If that sounds too doomsday prophecy to you, just tell me, as this group gets older, richer and more comfortable within their no-move clauses, do you think they’ll be more competitive, or less?
If you answered more, I’d tell you once again that dreams are just that, dreams, and I’ll wish you good luck with that.