Slegr

Leafs seem to be putting their eggs into the 2019-20 basket, but their lack of grit might just see them miss the post-season. How sweet it would be.

He'll be such a spark plug when he returns. It'll be an extra boost for this team. I'm pretty excited for what 2019/20 may bring for this team. I smell playoffs! And who knows, maybe potential upsets.

Not to mention that the last time the Leafs won the Cup, the league only had six teams. It’s baffling to think about it. There were only two rounds of playoffs.

Call me old fashioned, but I like the fact that our two goalies are no longer the two tallest players on the team.

With Kadri's suspension history, his next suspension will probably be for 25+ games. Why would Calgary want to touch that?

I couldn’t imagine feeling any type of way about a person who expresses their opinion about people who comment about a thread being over-pinned.

My thoughts - the refs would be throwing the book at us every night. I’m a big Burrows fan, but seriously, the re-pinning of this thread that was already pinned years past its expiration simply because of an announcement that Burrows and the Sedins will be in the ring of honour this year? We have a very exciting group of new players to focus on and in my opinion if this thread is destined to stay at the top of this forum it should have to do so via member replies rather than pinning.

I agree.. besides, retiring #1 is pretty tough for our future goalies. I think if a #1 gets retired, it needs to have brought us a cup as a minimum.

Roberto Luongo announced his retirement, and the Canucks are expected to face the cap recapture penalty clause in the CBA, costing about $3 million cap hit for the next three years. As most know, this penalty clause was instituted by the NHL as new rule following the signing of the Luongo contract, and it was intended to retroactively penalize teams that benefited from contracts like this one. It's true that the actual difference in cap hit is actually closer to $2.2 million, since the Canucks still had $800,000 in retained salary from Luongo’s contract, and that $800,000 is now off the books. Given the NHL created a CBA rule that came after the signing of the Luongo contract, I am going to make an assumption that the Canucks management will dispute this clause now that Luongo has declared his intentions. In fact, I'd be choked if they didn't dispute it. But my question is, will they win the dispute?

You're quite right. I just hope the Canucks don't let this slide, and fight it as they should. There is no way that the Canucks should have that amount count towards their cap hit. It's too bad Lu couldn't have just looked for a medical reason not to play, as it sounds like his body no longer works, but he always did have a big ego - it's part of the package, so announcing his retirement early rather than helping out Florida or Vancouver through medical tests / rationale to omit the cap relevance seems a bit like a me-above-the-teams move.

He's not perfect, but gets benefit of doubt this season. The problem with replacing him at this point will cause a new GM to want to put his own stamp on the team, and probably set us back several more years. We need to see what the team looks like and how it performs this season.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes!

I am way past the point of done with Goldobin. If we can get anything at all for him, we need to jump on it. Virtanen is developing just fine.

I sure hope so. I really miss seeing the Canucks in playoff hockey. It's the best kind of hockey, and these days, you get in and anything is possible.

Can he clear the crease? Or intimate opposition into not taking runs or cheap shots on our goalies? I’d like a defender or two who can do that.

You do have to wonder.. his third team in fairly short span. He may be talented, but me thinks he's not invaluable to a team.

It'll end up being a first in 2021, because Leafs will end up with a top 10 in 2020.That ship is sinking.

I personally love how Toronto media keep asking via twisted stories and op-eds for Maple Leafs to take home team discounts and don’t get it. And now Edler shows just how it’s done, reminiscent of Sedins and Burrows with past contracts. Suck it Toronto! I hope it has a cascading effect on Brock, EP, and Hughes.

NIce signing! Everything's coming up Milhouse!

Great day for Canucks. EP wins Calder, Edler looks to have signed. We are so lucky to have EP a part of our future. This guy is so fun to watch.

So sweet to have a Victoria game. Too bad it’s split squad and so early in the preseason, but whatever! I’m there.

It's interesting, right before the playoffs started, a lot of the eastern media were saying Billington should win it because the Blues were a dead-last place team in January and he helped propel them into the playoffs. But as they Playoffs went along, it became clear to me that his team was firing on all cylinders. I got to watch a lot of Blues hockey this post-season, and while Billington was good - perhaps above average, he wasn't sensational, despite his jaw-dropping numbers. The team in front of him played like the Canucks of '94. It made me doubt that he was the primary reason that the team turned around mid-year. EP simply was the Canucks' MVP this season. He brought people out of their seats. He had a couple of 5 point games. There is no doubt in my mind he should win the Calder. It was made for guys like him.

I thought Benning made a nice observation / quote in a recent radio interview. There was talk about 'what is a contender' now, and it's realized that it can virtually be any team that makes the playoffs, as proven by the last-place-to-first-place Blues. Benning then said something to the effect that you need just enough skills to get into the playoffs, but you need enough size / meat & potatoes to go anywhere in the playoffs. The 94 team had that balance. They were division champs in the years leading up to '94, (91, 92, 93), with perhaps too much skill, like Nedved types, and by '94, the team somehow hit the right balance, barely making it into the playoffs, but with plenty of both skill (Bure, Courtnall, Ronning) and toughness (Momesso, Hunter, etc). The 2011 team, while it did have some tough cookies and agitators, didn't have quite the right balance of skill / toughness, and fell too much on the skill side, and got picked apart by a better balanced Bruins team. You can argue the Canucks were very injured in the finals, but that could also point to the fact that the team wasn't quite balanced enough. Yes, they could finish first in all categories in the regular season, but it doesn't make a big difference if the right balance for playoffs isn't there.

It was a great interview and reassured me that Benning knows what this team needs. He was asked if it's possible whether Tryamkin could come back sooner than his existing contract and said no, the NHL respects KHL contracts. But Benning's voice sure sounded confident and interested when asked if he thinks Tryamkin is a piece of the Canucks future, commenting on how these playoff finals have been hard and physical.

Watching more of the finals, and pretty sure none of our defensemen would survive based on what they're letting go, but Tryamkin would thrive.