Toronto Maple Leafs – Cheering The Logo

By Bob Trask – There are no two teams in the NHL that represent a starker contrast the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. That contrast is limited to the on-ice performance from last season, the teams differ on many fronts.

Last Season

Despite falling short in the playoffs the Leafs put up 111 points in the regular season while the Canadiens finished with the 5th worst record, accumulating 68 points. The high-powered Leafs offense scored 47 more goals than the Canadiens and surrendered a whopping 85 fewer goals.

But last year is in the books and the path forward for the two teams remains vastly different.

Management

The Canadiens have a stable, experienced management team that has been in place for 18 months; one that has had a chance to evaluate every aspect of the team’s operations and prospect pool. The Leafs are now without a General Manager, this even with the draft quickly approaching. They also have several contracts approaching critical status and free agents to deal with. It is a lot for a new GM to absorb in the next 5 weeks.

Advantage: Canadiens

Contract Status

Toronto has 15 players under contract for next season and $9 million in cap room. That leaves them with just over $1M per player, on average, to fill out their roster. The Leafs have at least 10 UFAs and RFAs with some of them being relatively important players

Montreal has 19 players under contract and a similar amount of cap space. A lot of that will be dedicated to a new contract for Cole Caufield, leaving them with a minimal amount to round out the roster – unless some high priced contracts are shed.

Both teams have LTIR candidates that could open up more cap space for them. For the Leafs, it is Jake Muzzin and his $5.625M cap hit; for the Canadiens it is Carey Price and his $10.5M cap hit.

The Canadiens may have some additional flexibility if they can move one or two veteran contracts to make room for potential UFA or trade acquisitions. In no specific order these are the contracts of Joel Edmundson, Mike Hoffman, Joel Armia and perhaps even Christian Dvorak. The Leafs have the bulk of their cap space tied up in the Core 4 and Morgan Rielly. Unless they drop a bomb, those players aren’t going anywhere, leaving the Leafs with limited opportunity to create additional cap space.

Advantage: Canadiens.

Roster Age

The average age of Leafs’ forwards is 28.4 years and 30.2 years for their defensemen. It seems unlikely they will get any younger in a sport that is increasingly becoming a young man’s game. The average age of the Habs’ forwards is 27.4 years and 26.4 years for their defensemen. These averages could drop even further if 2 or 3 of the veterans mentioned earlier are traded.

It is often suggested that players reach their peak at around age 28 and then plateau for a while. If that applies to team age as well, then it would be expected that the Leafs have plateaued while the Canadiens could improve with experience.

Advantage: Canadiens

Prospect Pipeline

The Toronto Marlies did outperform the Laval Rocket in the AHL last year, but that is a poor measure of each team’s overall prospect pool.

Once you get past Matthew Knies, Topi Niemela and maybe William Villeneuve, the caliber of Leafs’s prospects drops off considerably. Rodion Amirov and his health situation leave him as a question mark. Nick Robertson could still be considered a prospect but the under-sized forward has never played more than 38 games in a season since turning pro.

Even if Juraj Slafkovsky is excluded the Canadiens have Joshua Roy, Riley Kidney, Kaspari Kapanen, Jesse Ylonen, Sean Farrell, Emil Heineman, Filip Mesar and Owen Beck as legitimate prospects at forward. Lane Hutson, Logan Mailloux, Adam Engstrom, William Trudeau and Jayden Struble head up a deep cast on defense. That is not including Nicolas Beaudin, Mattias Norlinder or Gianni Fairbrother, but in fairness, those three look like long shots at best.

At the moment, there is no comparison between the prospect pools but trades and the draft can change that quickly.

Advantage: Canadiens

The Draft

At the moment, Montreal holds 11 picks in the upcoming draft with their first pick coming at #5 and their second pick no later than #32. The team’s second round pick at #37 is almost equivalent to a late first round pick. Toronto’s first round pick, courtesy of the Boston Bruins, comes in at #28.

After exercising that first round pick, the next time the Leafs step to the podium will be for pick #154. The Canadiens have 8 picks currently available to them between #28 and #154. These are #31 or #32 (from Florida), #37, #69. #101, #110 (from Pittsburgh), #127 or #128 (from Vegas) and #133 and #145 (from Calgary).

Needless to say, this draft is heavily stacked in Montreal’s favor as compared to Toronto.

Advantage: Canadiens

Next Season

The top of the Leafs’ lineup is very talented and their goaltending situation looks better than Montreal’s. Having said that Toronto could struggle to match last year’s totals. The Canadiens’ lineup still has a lot of question marks with some big holes to fill but they should be on track to improve significantly over last year. It won’t be enough, however, to catch the Leafs.

Advantage: Leafs

Long Term Outlook

The management team of the Leafs has to choose one of two paths. They will either need to keep the Core 4 and Rielly intact to challenge or decide to go in a different direction entirely. Their choice will affect the long term outlook for the team. If they stick with the current core, they have a short window of opportunity before the depletion of the prospect pipeline takes affect. If they break up the core and can add key pieces through trades, they could remain competitive for a long time.

In other words, the picture is murky at best.

The Canadiens, on the other hand, have stressed a long term focus and have clearly moved in that direction. The current team is relatively young, the prospect pipeline is fully and the next two or three drafts already hold a lot of promise.

Advantage: Canadiens

Contrasts Reviewed

There is almost no aspect of the game where there isn’t a stark contrast between the Canadiens and the Leafs. The short term favors the Leafs but it should shift to the Canadiens over time. And for even more good news, the same contrasts with similar results could be applied to a comparison between the Canadiens and the Boston Bruins.

Rivals beware! The Canadiens are on the hunt.

By JD Lagrange – On Sunday night, I was watching the end of the game between the Boston Bruins and the Florida Panthers and, like most hockey fans out there, I was shocked by the outcome. But what really got me during those post-game moments, was seeing Patrice Bergeron hugging each and every Bruins’ player coming off the ice. Then, seeing how emotional he got when hugging David Krejci… and then, Brad Marchand.

This whole sequence made me realize how much appreciation and admiration I have for Bergeron. Yes, in spite of him playing for one of the two teams I dislike the most. I guess it is possible to hate a team, but love a player on their roster.

It got me thinking that today, like most Habs’ fan out there, there are two teams that I strongly dislike (not to use the word ‘hate’): the Boston Bruins, of course, and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Historically, since I’ve been following the NHL, you can add the Quebec Nordiques to these two. Oh there have been other teams that I disliked over the years, mostly due to short rivalries (like the Ottawa Senators), but it comes nowhere close to Quebec, Boston and Toronto.

Sinful admiration

With that said, there have been players on those teams that I have really liked. I will try to dress a list but don’t worry, you’ll see that it’s rather short.

Bruins

Bobby Orr: What’s there not to like about the guy? He could do it all on the ice. Offense, defense and he was tough as nail. The best defenseman to ever play the game, in my opinion.

Brad Park: For some reason, I have always liked Park, a defenseman who wore the Bruins’ colours from 1975 to 1983.

Jean Ratelle: I’ve just mentioned Brad Park, but Ratelle was traded with Park and Joe Zanussi to the Boston Bruins for Esposito and Carol Vadnais in November of 1975. I remember him more as a Bruin, with whom he had 450 points in 419 games in Boston.

Raymond Bourque: Again, another class act on and off the ice. If you were to put a picture in the dictionary about the definition of the Norris Trophy, as the best all-round defenseman, he would be it during his time.

Patrice Bergeron: We’ve just talked about him a bit, but he’s another genuine good guy. Great leader, good at both ends of the ice and on faceoffs. Doing the little things right.

Leafs

Wendel Clark: Clark is simply the type of player that I like most: power-forward who will play a physical game, and who can (and will) drop the gloves while contributing offensively as well. They don’t come any grittier than that, while being an excellent hockey player.

Darryl Sittler: The Leafs’ captain was cut in the same cloth as Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic. Class acts, great player, who can forget that afro? He was a 200-foot player who made his teammates better.

Lanny McDonald: A prolific goals’ scorer often better known for his red moustache. I liked him as a Leafs, but also as a Flames when he went to Calgary.

Rick Vaive: My admiration for Vaive dates from before he ever skated in the NHL. He was one of the many former Castors de Sherbrooke, in the QMJHL, whom I grew up watching, alongside Jimmy Mann, Richard Sévigny, Jere Gillis, Ron Carter and Floyd Lahache, amongst many others.

Nordiques

Michel Goulet: I hated him for his timely goals against the Canadiens, but what a good goals’ scorer he was. He wasn’t dirty but played hard, and he was always a threat while on the ice. You just couldn’t hate the guy.

Joe Sakic: Burnaby Joe was putting up 100 points a season on a bottom-feeding Nordiques’ team, well before they became respectable. In the same mold as many of the players in this article, he is a true class act and has been his entire playing career and now, in management.

Owen Nolan: Again, the power-forward who could do it all. It’s unfortunate that he and Sakic had to continue their career in Colorado when the NHL moved the Nordiques’ franchise there in 1995…

There you have it. So it’s a total of 12 players on three teams over a period of about 50 years! Not a high percentage, is it? I didn’t dislike every other players on those teams, far from there, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I liked them either. Who would be on your list? Put them down in the comments below.