» Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Tampa Bay Lightning – Game #48 Preview, Projected Lines & TV Info
20/01/25 20:48 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
The Maple Leafs hope to make it 3-0-0 in the 2024-25 season series against the Lightning tonight at Scotiabank Arena (7:30 p.m. EST, Amazon Prime). Three of Toronto’s forward lines and all three defense pairings will look different...
» Craig Berube on Morgan Rielly’s reduced offensive impact this season: “We’ve been trying to get our D more active lately, and it’s been better… I think you’ll see his production go up a little bit”
20/01/25 20:23 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Ahead of Monday’s game against Tampa Bay, head coach Craig Berube discussed the changes on the defense pairings, inserting Fraser Minten into the lineup, Morgan Rielly’s play this season, Joseph Woll’s workload, his rel...
» Leafs Notebook: Bobby McMann’s emergence as a difference-maker, Max Domi’s perplexing season, and takeaways from the comeback in Montreal
20/01/25 15:52 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
It’s another busy week ahead in Leafland, so let’s jump right into a meaty Leafs Notebook. Look out for part two tomorrow between games. I think it’s one you’ll enjoy mulling over. Notes – Last season in Montreal, Bobby McM...
» NHL weekend rankings: McDavid’s cross-check, an imminent trade and a goalie goal
20/01/25 13:27 from Down Goes Brown
The Panthers have earned a break, meaning they drop off the Top 5 for the first time all season and free up a spot. And there are more than a few teams with a decent case to make. By points percentage, the East’s next team is the Maple L...
» Game in 10: Maple Leafs stage epic comeback in Montreal led by Joseph Woll, balanced scoring
19/01/25 08:15 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Led by Joseph Woll’s goaltending performance, the Maple Leafs erased a 3-0 deficit by rattling off seven unanswered goals with offensive contributions from up and down the lineup. Your game in 10: 1. The Leafs weren’t ready to m...
» Craig Berube on the Leafs’ wild 7-3 win in Montreal: “It wasn’t just another game… It was a big game for both teams… A great comeback from the guys”
19/01/25 03:56 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Craig Berube addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 7-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens, which improved the team’s record to 29-16-2. On the 3-0 hole the team put itself in after 20 minutes: Just win more battles. We wat...
» Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Montreal Canadiens – Game #47 Preview, Projected Lines & TV Info
18/01/25 20:16 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
The Maple Leafs are looking to build on one of their best efforts of the season when they visit the Bell Centre for an HNIC matchup against the surging Montreal Canadiens (7:00 p.m. EST, Sportsnet/CBC). The parity-filled NHL’s 82-g...
» Craig Berube on inserting Ryan Reaves for Leafs vs. Habs: “It’s a big rivalry… We have to be physical and play a heavy game”
18/01/25 19:14 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Ahead of Saturday’s game in Montreal, head coach Craig Berube discussed the decision to dress Ryan Reaves, Philippe Myers’ emergence on the blue line, Simon Benoit sitting out a second straight game, and his favorite memories...
» Secondary scoring and a 23-save Matt Murray shutout propel the Toronto Marlies to victory in Manitoba
18/01/25 18:49 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
“We just played simple and got back to our game: Playing hard, fast, getting pucks in, and doing all the little things we need to do to play a full 60 [minutes].” – Matthew Barbolini on the Marlies’ keys to victo...
» The 9 levels of bad sports owner hell
17/01/25 14:30 from Down Goes Brown
It’s been an interesting week for NHL owners. In Buffalo, Terry Pegula watched his team get embarrassed while fans chanted for him to fire the GM or sell the team. In Philadelphia, Comcast dropped a surprise announcement of a new arena, ...
» Game in 10: Maple Leafs snap the slump with one of their best wins of the season, sweep Keefe’s Devils
17/01/25 05:41 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
The Maple Leafs picked up a well-earned 4-3 overtime victory over the Devils on Thursday night, sweeping their former head coach in the three-game season series thanks to a strong and resilient team effort. Your game in 10: 1. Perhaps ...
» Craig Berube on the Leafs snapping their three-game slump vs. New Jersey: “Our offensive-zone play was a lot better because of movement and shot attempts… It was the biggest difference”
17/01/25 04:04 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Craig Berube addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 4-3 overtime win over the New Jersey Devils, which improved the team’s record to 28-16-2. On the team’s performance: I thought we battled hard all game. That was t...
» Why aren’t the Maple Leafs controlling the play enough at five-on-five? A deep dive into the lines, pairs, and systems
16/01/25 17:07 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Ahead of last week’s game against the Vancouver Canucks, Max Pacioretty held an insightful media availability in which he touched on several topics surrounding the Maple Leafs’ current season. One of Pacioretty’s quotes...
» Toronto Maple Leafs vs. New Jersey Devils – Game #46 Preview, Projected Lines & TV Info
16/01/25 17:06 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Jake McCabe returns to the Maple Leafs’ lineup, but John Tavares exits it (Injured Reserve, week-to-week) as Toronto attempts to snap a three-game losing slide by sweeping the season series against Sheldon Keefe’s New Jersey ...
» Craig Berube on the mindset during John Tavares’ week-to-week absence: “When Auston was out, we played a real strong team game every night”
16/01/25 17:06 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Ahead of Thursday’s game, head coach Craig Berube discussed John Tavares’ week-to-week injury, Max Domi elevating in the lineup in Tavares’ absence, and his first 45 games in the head coaching role. Morning Skate Notes ...
» Sheldon Keefe ahead of his first game back in Toronto: “The top players on the Leafs don’t get nearly enough credit for how hard they compete on the puck, the turnovers they create, and how they forecheck”
16/01/25 17:05 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Ahead of his first game back in Toronto as head coach of the opposition, New Jersey Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe discussed his time in Toronto, the players he impacted (specifically Bobby McMann and Jake McCabe), and the upcoming Four...
» Craig Berube on the Leafs scoring one goal in the last two losses: “Goals go in when you shoot pucks and are around the net… We have to do a better job of it at 5-on-5 and on the power play”
15/01/25 19:11 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
After Wednesday’s practice, head coach Craig Berube discussed John Tavares leaving practice with an injury, Jake McCabe’s possible return on Thursday, William Nylander’s dip offensively, Max Pacioretty returning from a ...
» “What are they trying to do on the power play? No one knows” – Anthony Petrielli discusses the Maple Leafs’ man-advantage struggles on Sportsnet 590
15/01/25 17:19 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
MLHS’ Anthony Petrielli joined The Fan Morning Show to discuss Brad Treliving’s reported interest in John Klingberg, Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s ice time, Morgan Rielly’s season to date, and whether the 2024-25 Maple ...
» Which non-Hall-of-Famer played the most career games for your favorite team?
15/01/25 13:25 from Down Goes Brown
The Hurricanes retired Eric Staal’s number one Sunday, a well-deserved moment for one of the most popular players in franchise history. Sending a player’s number to the rafters can be tricky business, and some teams handle it better than...
» Game in 10: Maple Leafs lose special teams and goaltending battles, don’t generate enough at 5v5 in loss to Stars
15/01/25 06:03 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
The Toronto Maple Leafs’ mid-January blues continued as the team dropped a third straight game, this time to the Dallas Stars at home by a 4-1 margin. This game got away from the Leafs. A strong start and an opportunity to bu...
» Craig Berube on the fans booing after the Leafs’ third straight loss: “They pay good money to see hockey, and they want to see us win… That’s the way it goes”
15/01/25 04:00 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Craig Berube addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars, which dropped the team’s record to 27-16-2. On the team’s performance: Tonight, the game was right there. I thought we started ...
» The state of the Leafs’ defense, the power-play struggles, and early trade deadline thoughts – MLHS Podcast Ep. 81
14/01/25 02:10 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
In the latest MLHS Podcast, Nick Ashbourne and Anthony Petrielli discuss Brad Treliving’s recent comments about the trade market, Morgan Rielly’s slow season to date, the overall state of the blue line, the underachieving pow...
» Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Dallas Stars – Game #45 Preview, Projected Lines & TV Info
14/01/25 00:18 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
After two disappointing performances against Carolina and Vancouver, the Maple Leafs are looking to find their way back into the win column against a surging Stars team that is 8-1-1 in its last 10 games but has lost seven straight to To...
» Leafs Notebook: Mitch Marner’s reaction to the Vancouver loss, William Nylander’s dip in offense, and why it’s time for accountability on the power play
13/01/25 20:40 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
After their five-game winning streak came to an end last Thursday, the Maple Leafs are now coming off two disappointing losses to the Hurricanes and Canucks, the latter of which generated some mixed post-game reaction from the leadership...
» Brad Treliving on Auston Matthews’ participation in the Four Nations tournament: “Nothing at this point makes me worry about that, but we are still a month away or so”
13/01/25 19:17 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
After Monday’s practice, GM Brad Treliving discussed the team’s strengths and weaknesses in the first half of the season, trade deadline planning, a possible need at center ice, and the contract situations of Matthew Knies, J...
» Craig Berube on moving Steven Lorentz onto Auston Matthews & Mitch Marner’s line: “I’m looking for someone who can create some loose puck battles and make sure he’s at the net all the time”
13/01/25 19:16 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
After Monday’s practice, head coach Craig Berube discussed the mixed reaction among the players to the loss to the Canucks, moving Steven Lorentz up onto the top line, returning to five forwards on the power play, Ryan Reaves’...
» Weekend NHL rankings: The Blue Jackets are the league’s best story and it’s not close
13/01/25 14:19 from Down Goes Brown
We’re past the midway mark of the season, which means we can’t just hand-wave away any surprises with a dismissive “too early”. That’s bad news for people like me who make preseason predictions, because it means we might have to accept t...
» Vyacheslav Peksa hung out to dry in his first AHL start as Toronto Marlies slump to defeat against struggling Utica
13/01/25 06:26 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
“We had the chance to do something in the third period and were non-existent. It’s very disappointing. It’s not the standard, and it’s something we have to be better at, especially when you’re 1-4 in your ...
» Craig Berube on the Leafs’ sleepy performance vs. Vancouver: “Maybe it is travel or whatever, but we need more life and energy”
12/01/25 03:55 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Craig Berube addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 3-0 loss to the Vancouver Canucks, which dropped the team’s record to 27-15-2. On the team’s performance: I didn’t think we played with enough pace in the ga...
» Nikita Grebenkin scores twice, Toronto Marlies snap four-game losing streak with road victory in Syracuse
11/01/25 16:43 from Toronto Maple Leafs Hot Stove
“I don’t think it was a perfect 60 [minutes], but we kind of got on the other side of the luck. It was nice to play with the lead for a change.” – Fraser Minten “That’s the best third-period we̵...
» DGB Mailbag: Ovechkin’s record-breaker, the Jack Adams curse, and 4 Nations fights
10/01/25 13:34 from Down Goes Brown
We haven’t done a mailbag since just after the season started. Remember back then? When the Rangers and Bruins were elite, the Predators were ready to contend, the Habs and Blue Jackets were write-offs and the Sabres were going to take t...
» Ranking 25 of the NHL's biggest blockbuster trades from the last 25 years
08/01/25 21:46 from Down Goes Brown
Happy new year. How did you enjoy the first quarter-century of the 2000s? That question probably makes you either feel old (because there’s no way it’s been that long) or young (because you haven’t even been around that whole time). I’m ...
» NHL weekend rankings: Offseason regrets, Lightning surge, and are the Habs good?
06/01/25 13:36 from Down Goes Brown
The holidays are done, you’re sitting in a home surrounded by all your new stuff, and you’re probably thinking: I don’t need some of this junk after all. I hope I kept the receipts. A few NHL teams know how you feel. We did this last yea...
» Mid-season mailbag?
05/01/25 19:48 from Down Goes Brown
Hey folks... It feels like a good time to do amidseason mailbag. I need your questions. Fun ones, silly ones, complicated ones, simple ones, about everything from fictional awards to history to real, actual hockey news. Topics could incl...
» Florida vs. California: Debating the NHL's best state of the salary cap era
03/01/25 17:06 from Down Goes Brown
Which state has been the NHL’s best of the cap era? There are four states with multiple NHL teams, but two stand out above the others for our purposes today. New York has three teams but no championships to show for the cap era, and are,...
» Ranking the 10 best (and 5 worst) games for Alex Ovechkin to break the record
01/01/25 17:20 from Down Goes Brown
Alexander Ovechkin is back, and the chase for history has resumed. Ovechkin returned to the Washington lineup on Friday, needing 27 goals to pass Wayne Gretzky for the all-time crown. He wasted little time in getting the first of those t...
» NHL weekend rankings: Change finally comes in Detroit, plus I was wrong but it's fine
30/12/24 14:17 from Down Goes Brown
We’re right in the middle of the holiday season, meaning you’re probably still fighting off a turkey coma and/or dealing with overstimulated kids and/or planning your New Year’s party. What you’re probably not doing is obsessing about th...
» Filling in history's awards gaps with once-a-decade bonus trophies that I made up
27/12/24 15:32 from Down Goes Brown
We’re almost at the end of 2024, which means we’re almost half through the 2020s. That reminded me of a decades-based idea I’ve had kicking around for a while, and since I don’t have the patience to wait five more years, we’re doing it t...
» New York state of maligned: Who has it worse this year, the Sabres or the Rangers?
26/12/24 15:48 from Down Goes Brown
It hasn’t been a great start to the season in the state of New York. How bad has it been? Bad enough that today’s post is a “Which team in the state has it worst?”, and we’re not even including the ones that’s only won 13 of their 35 gam...
» NHL weekend rankings: Vancouver drama, Dallas dropping, and holiday wishes for all
23/12/24 14:43 from Down Goes Brown
Happy holidays, at least once we get one last night of action out of the way tonight. We’ve got a busy schedule of 13 games on the slate, at which point everyone gets a few days off to relax and unwind, spend time with family, and give t...
» Tax-adjusted salary cap? Single game playoff tie-breakers? NHL Rules Court returns
19/12/24 14:05 from Down Goes Brown
Welcome back to Rules Court, where things will look a little different this time around. Without digging into the details, we had to make the difficult decision to fire one of our long-serving judges because he knows what he did . That o...
» Maple Leafs Momentum: Tavares Shines Amid Stolarz Setback
18/12/24 15:58 from Centre of Leafs Nation
Join us in this episode of “Maple Leafs Momentum” as we dive deep into the thrilling world of the Toronto Maple Leafs! With the team currently sitting atop the Atlantic Division, we celebrate the clutch performances of captai...
» Trying to find a precedent for the Rangers' ongoing Presidents' Trophy plummet
18/12/24 14:22 from Down Goes Brown
The New York Rangers are in freefall, suffering through the kind of in-season implosion we rarely see from a contender. The captain has been traded, the longest-serving star is on the block, the coach is on thin ice, and the GM is gettin...
» NHL weekend rankings: Avalanche, Red Wings, and way too many teams in crisis
16/12/24 13:49 from Down Goes Brown
It’s mid-December. Do you know what level of crisis your favorite team is in? Chances are, the answer is “pretty darn high”. This is the time of year when we normally see a few teams figuring out that reality isn’t going to match their h...
» Various Mark Messier leadership award winners, ranked by how poorly they held up
13/12/24 19:36 from Down Goes Brown
I’m not sure the NHL has a weirder annual award than the Mark Messier Leadership Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Leadership. It’s not quite a slam dunk, because the Lady Byng exists. But at least that award has been aro...
» Five season storylines that we were all wrong about (except, were we really?)
11/12/24 13:29 from Down Goes Brown
One of the most important things a sportswriter can do is admit when they’re wrong. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told. For me, personally, it never really comes up. OK, that’s not quite true. I suppose it’s possible that I’ve been ...
» NHL weekend rankings: Kings roll, Sabres spiral, and a wild weekend in New York
09/12/24 14:29 from Down Goes Brown
Remember a few years ago when the NHL had that weird marketing campaign promising “no soap operas, just hockey”? I don’t think they got the memo in New York. The Rangers have been tumbling down the standings lately, but they’ve shot to t...
» Baggy nets and blue undershirts: 6 more things I miss from the NHL’s ancient days
06/12/24 13:27 from Down Goes Brown
Exactly one year ago today, I wrote a column about being old , and the subtle things I miss about what hockey used to be. No big issues, to be clear – we’re talking stuff like how the water bottles used to pop off the nets, and how ...
» Which NHL players are the best at each age right now? Who are the best all-time?
05/12/24 13:32 from Down Goes Brown
If you’re a sports fan, you’re familiar with the adage “Father Time is undefeated.” It’s ubiquitous because it’s true. It’s why we talk about the dreaded “wrong side” of 30, and even fret over long-term deals signed by 29-year-olds; even...
» Which bad team's fan base might be nearing a tipping point of hopelessness?
04/12/24 14:17 from Down Goes Brown
Somebody should probably check on Duane. You remember Duane, the disgruntled Buffalo fan who reached his breaking point in January 2020. Frustrated after watching his beloved Sabres spin their wheels on their way to what would be their 1...