Merry Christmas folks and my apologies about the lack of articles so far this year. Business has been busy, kids have been sick and all that jazz. Life is good and I hope you can say the same.
The Leafs sit 2nd in the Atlantic as of this writing, with a record of 16-7-6. Considering the fact that they don’t have a legitimate starting goaltender or defensive top pair, that’s not too shabby.
Here are a couple of quotes from last nights tilt and some random links:
I’ll finish with a few notes:
The Leafs need to find a new home for Ilya Samsonov. I originally thought that Sammy’s tenure here could be linked to how good Jones played, but that’s no longer the case. Samsonov is 3.55M of wasted capspace with the way he’s playing and unless Jones finds his prime play again they need an upgrade in net, even if thats only for the next couple of seasons.
Nylander isn’t going anywhere, as much as I’d love to see them cash in while he’s peaking. I don’t believe he’ll be capable of doing what he is doing right now forever. Three years from now he’ll be the 60-70pt player that we’re used to, but he’ll be paid like an elite producer. That’s my prediction and I’d be happy to be wrong about it. In my opinion the time to move him for blueline help is right now.
The St. Louis Blues have fired head coach Craig Berube and the Ottawa Senator’s fired their head coach, D.J. Smith. It wouldn’t surprise anybody is Berube ended up in Ottawa, but that’s not what I care about. Step 1 for a lot of teams is to fire the coach. Step 2 depends on the organization in question, but generally results in firing the GM or trading some players to re-tool the roster. Doug Armstrong is the Blues’ GM and has been there since 2010. If he doesn’t go anywhere then roster reconstruction could be under consideration. Colton Parayko would make a ton of sense for the Leafs if that’s the route they take and are willing to make a big change.