There have been a few things happening around the NHL today. The biggest news being that 5 players from Canada’s 2018 WJC team have been asked to surrender to the London Police:
While some names are being linked to this, it’s still too early to say who will be charged in connection with the sexual assault. A total of 5 players from the team have requested and been granted permission to take an indefinite leave of absence from their respective teams. They include Carter Hart, Dillon Dube, Alex Formenton, Michael McLeod and Cal Foote. Some others are being speculated upon for various reasons, including not receiving NHL contracts even though their play would have seemingly justified one of the 32 NHL teams stepping up to the plate. We’ll see how this unfolds, but it’s definitely a black eye on the face of the NHL.
Minutes after this was announced the NHL saw fit to announce that the league could consider expanding into the state of Utah:
In what many have deemed a far too obvious attempt at deflecting attention away from the sexual assault scandal, the NHL chose a very inopportune time to release this information. Expansion is fun but there was no rush to get this information out.
There was a time when the Toronto Maple Leafs would face every teams backup goaltender, because they were just that bad that team felt it fitting to give their starter the night off and their 2nd stringer a start against an easier opponent. We’re starting to see that more and more this season and it’s very telling as to how other teams see the Leafs:
It’s my theory that the Leafs are so bad defensively that teams are okay with going with their backup, which would potentially mean giving up 1-2 more goals, because they know they have a strong chance at scoring 4+ goals themselves. It’s also worth noting that all of Toronto’s goaltenders are about as strong as the average backup goalie. By simply playing your own backup against them you’re matching the Leafs’ efforts in net and the game plan is for your defense to beat their offense. In terms of the Winnipeg Jets that’s a good game plan. They are a very strong team defensively, with the proof coming in the form of a 34 game streak of allowing 3 goals of less, that just ended this week after they allowed 4 goals to the Boston Bruins.
The Leafs on the other hand, have allowed 3 or more goals in 6 of their past 7 games and don’t seem to really care how many they allow because the game plan is to beat the other team by 1 each night by way of pond hockey tactics.
Lets just hope that Ilya Samsonov is ready to go, because he’s going to have to stop a ton of Grade A scoring chances tonight: