Adding John Tavares to their roster pre-season, the Toronto Maple Leafs were expected to take the Stanley Cup without a hitch, but they trail the Tampa Bay Lightning by 14 points and the New York Islanders are only one point behind them.
Tavares’ former team, who was supposed to be at the bottom of the barrel for this season, is only a point behind them. Auston Matthews, who spent a portion of the season recovering from injury is one of Toronto’s few bright spots, but even his 1.21 points per game has not put him in the league’s top ten. Their team stats have not exactly been top tier, either. Center Mitchell Marner is their top point-getter with 63, which is only 10th best in the National Hockey League. Tavares is 24th with 56 and Morgan Rielly is 32nd with 52. In two of the last three seasons, the top point-getter on the Cup-winning team was in the top three of point-getters in the entire NHL. The numbers do not bode well for the Maple Leafs if they keep up these poor numbers. They are also only 5-4-1 in their last 10 games, the overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings who are the third worst team in the Eastern Conference. Their other four losses are to the Arizona Coyotes, Florida Panthers, Colorado Avalanche, and the Boston Bruins. Boston is the only one of these teams who are in a position to acquire even a Wild Card spot. That brings up another interesting point involving the Bruins. Their mean age is 26.03 years old, meaning that they are a very young team that Toronto will have to contend with for years to come, which hinders their shot at future Cups, as well. Why is that so important if Boston is struggling to hold onto a Wild Card spot? This season, the Bruins and Leafs faced four times, three of which Boston won. One of those Boston wins was in Toronto. Boston also won two of those games by three goals or more, losing their only loss by two goals. Now, the Leafs are only slightly older than the Bruins, their mean age is 26.33 years old, but their record against this young Boston team shows that they will have troubles with Boston in not only this year’s postseason, where the two have a high chance of playing each other, but in future seasons for at least the next five years. If teams like Boston are going to be such a roadblock for the team that was supposed to have an easy road to the Stanley Cup this season, then the Leafs are in for some major issues. Not to mention that a team from perpetually warm Tampa Bay, Florida is beating them at a game played on ice, something Tampa has not seen naturally occurring since December 23 of 1989. Toronto is in trouble and is ultimately a disappointment to their fanbase. Jesse A. Cook “Maple Leafs Aren’t Everything They Should Be” February 6, 2019
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Come early April, the Florida Panthers’ Shawn Thornton famously dropped his skates in a trash bin after his final game. The two-time Stanley Cup champion retired immediately after his final April 9, 2017 game on the road versus the Washington Capitals. They beat the Caps 2-0. Thornton spent the brunt of his career in his beloved Boston with the Bruins. Known as the “Instigator,” Thornton spent 1103 of his minutes in the penalty box. He was best known for his ability to start and win fights with rival players. If you look on HockeyFights.com, 242 of their videos belong to the Instigator. Of course, a fair sized portion of those fights were in the AHL, but that still adds up to 1210 minutes, and that’s just from the videos that the owners of the site deemed worthy of recognition. Starting out with the Chicago Blackhawks, he quickly became a major “hit.” He had two points in 13 games, one goal and one assist, in his rookie 2002-03 season, but that combined with 31 penalty minutes helped start the blue collar career of the great Thornton. He spent one year in the 2006-07 season with the Anaheim Ducks when accompanied by stars Ryan Getzlaf, Scott Niedermeier, and Corey Perry he won his first Stanley Cup. Spending 88 of the minutes of the 48 games he played, it was clear to the entire National Hockey League that you didn’t mess around with him or one of his teammates without suffering the consequences of a blow to the head. The Bruins saw this in him and decided he was the right guy to defend their stars, Marc Savard, Phil Kessel, and Zdeno Chara.
Thus started the long Boston career of the beloved Shawn Thornton: they’d only miss the playoffs once in his seven year tenure and his fellow fourth linemates of Daniel Paille and Gregory Campbell helped him build the best fourth line in all of hockey. When Boston won the Finals in the 2010-11 season, a major factor was how there was an unrelenting stream of skill and hard work from the first line to the fourth, mainly perpetuated by Thornton’s ethic of never quitting. The B’s relied greatly on Thornton’s veteran presence to teach the younger players and to show them the type of playing that led to a Cup win. Thornton, now a front office executive for the Panthers, decided that he would only exercise to “not get fat.” He’s officially done with skating, playing hockey, and most importantly, fighting. His second Stanley Cup winning year was his best year as he got himself 20 points (10 goals and 10 assists), and it’s safe to say that Thornton had a great career. Jesse A. Cook “Shawn Thornton: The Last Instigator” June 28, 2017 |
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