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Tomorrow the real season begins, but today we get to talk about two teams that didn't get invited to the dance. Two teams who were way more talented than their records dictated, and two teams at a major crossroads. Later I will discuss the Flyers...but first
In Toronto....
What to say that hasn't been said… well let's start here. There is absolutely no reason for people to use the media to take parting shots at history. Yesterday when it was reported that some of the people who were fired we're talking about how they were against the Kessel trade? Really?
You can accuse Buffalo, Arizona, or even Edmonton of tanking this year, but honestly when the Leafs fired their coach they were sitting in a playoff spot. They were a team that decided very clearly to be bad. Right or wrong, this organization decided it was going to suck for the rest of year. They went from a bubble team to a troubled team very quickly. The term dysfunction doesn't even scratch the surface.
Now I know you can argue that they were stuck in no man's land. Living on the edge of the playoffs like the Florida Panthers have or the Atlanta Thrashers once had, for years. I know that story. I get it. You never are never bad enough to get a great pick, never good enough to really compete for the Stanley Cup.
So now the Leafs will get one stud young player, and they only had to lose 95% of the second half of the season to to do so. One player. One player.
Saturday night might come, and a magic ping-pong ball with blue and white may appear... And Connor McDavid may ride down Yonge Street on a white horse... It will all be worth it if that happens. I actually I hope it does, because I feel this fan base deserves a hell of a lot better of a standard than this.
There are Maple leaf fans, under 10 years old, who have never known anything but tank nation.
Think about that.
We will discuss all this and more on today's hockey buzzcast at 2 PMET which will be dedicated to the postmortem on the Maple Leafs and Flyers. On tomorrow's show we will preview the series starting tomorrow and the same on Thursday.