Sunday’s FTB: You win the first, you lose the second
The Maple Leafs finally take a break from back-to-back hockey next week.
At least the back-to-backs are over for short time. The Maple Leafs have a break for a few days after losing last night’s segababa against the Canadiens.
The fans are getting antsy over this and I’m sure it will be talked about by Arvind and Fulemin on today’s episode of our Back to Excited podcast which will be posted this afternoon.
The bad news is that there aren’t any great goalies out there sitting around waiting to make their NHL debut, especially at a salary the Leafs could fit under the salary cap. We are stuck with Michael Hutchinson and need him to be better.
Michael Hutchinson: "As a goalie, you want to be able to make those big saves at those key times & unfortunately I wasn't able to make those big saves in the third period ..."
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) October 27, 2019
When the Seattle expansion draft happens I suspect they will likely go all in on goalies so they have a whole bunch of different backups to test out to start the season like the Golden Knights did.
Since the next back-to-back game is two weeks away you can all calm down complaining about ho the team handles starts on those. Coming up this week: the Leafs host the Capitals on Tuesday and then play the Flyers and James van Riemsdyk on Saturday in Philadelphia.
The Marlies are on a bus tour to see the fall leaves in Upstate New York, and fit in a few hockey games too. Last night they lost in overtime to the Binghamton Devils. That was their first loss of the season after winning six straight to start. They face the Syracuse Crunch this afternoon.
Other News
You can always count on an Ben Bishop to make a boneheaded move and be the worst goalie of the night.
Boone Jenner has one of those fun goals that will stick out on all the ice plots for the season because the puck was behind the net.
Elliotte Friedman reported from that outdoor game which no one knew was happening until yesterday that the NHL has a contingency plan it can activate if there are no other avenues left for professional women’s hockey to continue.
I figured from what we've been hearing from the PWHPA for the last little while that planning was happening behind the scenes. And we know the league's had a plan before, sounds pretty much like they're just dusting it off.
— nafio (@nafio) October 27, 2019
So don’t think that the NHL has a Women’s League package with team names, locations, and colours all set to go or anything remotely close to that. The plan is probably limited to the high level organisational requirements of the league startup. It could be simply a list of names and contact information of people the NHL Board has ‘pre-qualified’ to be approached about filling the executive positions required to startup the league, as well as a pre-approved budget for that startup. All the details would be worked out after that, if it happens.
It is a gloomy wet Sunday here in Toronto, and there’s really very little news otherwise in the NHL. No trades, no major injuries, no coaches fired. No nothing. That means no links. Have a fun day!