It looks like the Raptors are moving to another coach.

I'm starting to think that there has to be something that I can do as an individual to express my displeasure with the way that Hockey Canada handled this situation.  What was alleged to have happen was a crime and people are supposed to pay for their crimes. I feel like there was no penalty here other than paying someone off to make the problem go away. 

https://www.tsn.ca/1.1718746.1636496807

Well this seems ominous.

Per Darren Dreger, Eichel is going to Vegas for Alex Tuch and picks.

https://www.tsn.ca/1.1674517.1627522914

For Connor Timmins, a 1st round pick in 2022 and a.third round pick in 2024.

Announcement says he lost his battle with cancer today.

Per TSN

Zucker to Penguins for Galchenyk, Calen Addison, and a 2020 first round pick.

(For reals this time).

[Goals Per Game]

@
9-9-4, 22 points | 10-9-3, 23 points

Projected Lines

Johnsson-Matthews-Nylander Hyman-Tavares-Kapanen Mikheyev-Spezza-Petan Timashov-Shore-Gauthier Rielly-Ceci Muzzin-Holl Dermott-Barrie Andersen

Pacioretty-Karlsson-Smith Marchessault-Eakin-Stone Tuch-Stastny-Glass Carrier-Nosek-Reaves McNabb-Schmidt Hague-Theodore Merrill-Engelland Fleury

Scratches

Pierre Engvall Martin Marincin

Nick Holden Brandon Pirri

Team Stats

3.18	Goals Per Game	3
3.41	Goals Against Per Game	2.95
70	Total Goals	66
.897	Save Percentage	.907
53.8%	Faceoff %	49.7%
16.7%	Power Play %	21.6%
75%	Penalty Kill %	87.2%

Team Leaders

Matthews - 27	Points	Karlsson - 23
Muzzin - 47	Hits	Reaves - 99
Andersen - .912	Save %	Fleury - .920

Game Notes
TOR
•Andersen (9-4-3, 2.74 GAA, .912 Sv%) will likely start for the Leafs
•The Leafs are trying to avoid going winless in 6
•The Leafs last win was against Vegas, 2-1
•Mike Babcock has started to refer to himself in the third person, which could lead to the theory that Mike Babcock doesn't know why Mike Babcock is doing the things he is doing

VGK
•Fleury (10-5-1, 2.52 GAA, .920 Sv%) will likely start for the Golden Knights
•Vegas had a convincing win against Calgary on Sunday night after going winless in their previous 4


Injuries

•Mitch Marner - Ankle - Injured Reserve •Trevor Moore - Shoulder - Injured Reserve •Alex Kerfoot - Face - Injured Reserve

•None, The Vegas Golden Knights have no known injuries

Stream Options

https://www.reddit.com/r/NHLstreams

William Karlsson has signed an 8 year extension at 5.9 million per year with Vegas.

https://www.tsn.ca/golden-knights-to-sign-forward-william-karlsson-to-eight-year-extension-1.1327290

TSN is reporting that the cap is set to 81.5 million for next year:

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl-salary-cap-set-at-81-5-million-for-2019-20-season-1.1327040

Two players and two picks go the other way.

https://www.tsn.ca/nashville-predators-trade-pk-subban-to-new-jersey-devils-1.1326920

I was perusing the league scoring leaders, and I noticed that Anze Kopitar has 89 points this year.  Quite the season for a 30 year old.  That isn't the only thing that is anomalous about scoring this season.  As of today there are 24 players (who have played at least 50 games) who are averaging a point per game.  Here are the number of players in each year that have averaged a point per game since the 2010-2011 season:

2010-2011: 12
2011-2012: 7
2012-2013: 19 (Lockout Shortened year)
2013-2014: 10
2014-2015: 7
2015-2016: 5
2016-2017: 8

So the first question is, is this season an anomaly, or is this upswing in scoring going to continue? 

If it's going to continue, what do you think the cause of it is?  I'm sure it's a combination of factors.  Here are a some things that I can think of:

1.  Expansion weakened teams across the board.  In years past expansion would add one weak team.  This expansion added a fairly strong team that took fairly good pieces off of other teams, perhaps allowing a scoring chance or 2 per game across the board.

2.  Pittsburgh winning the cup with three elite scorers has caused teams to try and replicate that model in an order to beat them.  Their system forces teams to have offense in an effort to compete with them because you can't shut down all three players over a 7 game series, thus opening up the game.

3.  Goalie equipment changes have flat out lead to more goals.

4.  We are reaching a saturation point of scoring talent league wide.  Drafting ideologies have changed, and players are focusing on skilled players rather than size, and that ideology has lead to an influx of talent.  Combine that with the scoring talents of some of the older players that have stuck around and you have the spread out talent base that can put the puck in the net.  This would be similar to what happened around the  late 80's, early nineties where there was a lot of scoring league wide, and you saw players like Dave Andreychuk score back to back 50 goal seaons and players like Pat Lafontaine reach a pinnacle of 148 points.

One other thing that I though might have an impact is the emphasis on puck possession around the league has lead to more passing centric game plans as a teams try to maintain the puck, which has lead to more players getting assists. That might be a reach, but I thought it might be a factor in some way shape or form.  I think a deep dive in to goal scoring rates versus assist rates would be required to see if there was something there.

Anyways, I hope it continues.  I like more scoring and I think the games have been really interesting this year.  I don't need players to put up 215 point seasons, but it would be nice to have 4 or 5 players break 100 points in a season.  That probably won't happen this year, but even having 2, and a bunch of players in the 90 point ranch would be an improvement over previous years.

I stumbled across an article that listed Tyler Biggs as the Leafs biggest draft bust.  The criteria they used for saying this is the following:

"The 2011 draft was a huge low point, when the Buds squandered two first round picks on Stuart Percy (25th overall) and Tyler Biggs (22nd overall). Percy has at least played 12 games at the NHL level, while Biggs is gone from the Maple Leafs system and is in the ECHL as a free agent. In the Brian Burke "truculence" era, Biggs was square in Burke's sights at the '11 event, coming in at 6'2″ and 220 lbs. Unfortunately, Biggs was a bust in the AHL with the Marlies and was eventually sent to the ECHL's Orlando Solar Bears in 2015 before being included in the Phil Kessel trade to Pittsburgh."

That got me looking through the Leafs draft history and seeing if I could find someone who would be considered more of a bust then Biggs.  See the thing is, I think that while Biggs didn't amount to much, you have to take other things in to consideration, such as draft position and who else was available.  There were better options than Biggs at the time of the draft, and I believe several brought that up at the time, so maybe you feel he is the biggest bust as well.  Here's a list of the Leafs first round picks over the years, and what they accomplished in the NHL.  Obviously some of these are not going to be in the conversation because they were really good picks, but I thought I would include them all as a nice walk down memory lane. 

Year	Position	Player	Games Played	Points
2017	17th Overall	Timothy Liljegren	0	0
2016	1st Overall	Auston Matthews	98	88
2015	4th Overall	Mitch Marner	96	76
2014	8th Overall	William Nylander	122	87
2013	21st Overall	Frederic Gauthier	28	4
2012	5th Overall	Morgan Reilly	331	135
2011	22nd Overall	Tyler Biggs	0	0
2011	25th Overall	Stuart Percy	12	3
2009	7th Overall	Nazem Kadri	427	274
2008	5th Overall	Luke Schenn	664	138
2006	13th Overall	Jiri Tlusty	446	177
2005	21st Overall	Tukka Rask	407	9
2002	24th Overall	Alexander Steen	835	540
2001	17th Overall	Carlo Colaiacovo	470	157
2000	24th Overall	Brad Boyes	822	505
1999	24th Overall	Luca Cereda	0	0
1998	10th Overall	Nikolai Antropov	788	465
1995	15th Overall	Jeff Ware	21	1
1994	16th Overall	Eric Fichaud	95	1
1993	12th Overall	Kenny Jonsson	686	267
1993	19th Overall	Landon Wilson	375	119
1992	8th Overall	Brandon Convery	72	28
1992	23rd Overall	Grant Marshall	700	239
1990	10th Overall	Drake Berehowsky	549	149
1989	3rd Overall	Scott Thorton	941	285
1989	12th Overall	Rob Pearson	269	110
1989	21st Overall	Steve Bancroft	6	1
1988	6th Overall	Scott Pearson	292	98
1987	7th Overall	Luke Richardson	1417	201
1986	6th Overall	Vincent Damphousse	1378	1205
1985	1st Overall	Wendel Clark	793	564
1984	4th Overall	Al Iafrate	799	463
1983	7th Overall	Russ Courtnall	1029	744
1982	3rd Overall	Gary Nylund	608	171
1981	6th Overall	Jim Benning	610	243
1979	9th Overall	Laurie Boschman	1009	577
1977	11th Overall	John Andersen	814	631
1977	12th Overall	Trevor Johansen	286	57
1975	6th Overall	Dan Ashby	188	96
1974	13th Overall	Jack Valiquette	350	218
1973	4th Overall	Lanny McDonald	1111	1006
1973	10th Overall	Bob McNeely	283	98
1973	15th Overall	Ian Turnbull	628	440
1972	11th Overall	George Ferguson	797	398
1970	8th Overall	Daryl Sittler	1096	1121
1969	9th Overall	Ernie Moser	0	0
1968	10th Overall	Brad Selwood	163	47
1966	4th Overall	John Wright	127	52
1964	5th Overall	Tom Martin	3	1
1963	6th Overall	Walt McKechnie	955	606

So for me, it's 1988's Scott Pearson (sorry Scott).  I feel that with a 6th overall pick, you should get a pretty good player.  I think I read somewhere that the Leafs reached on him in that draft, which I think is supported by the fact that the next 4 players taken in that draft were Martin Gelinas, Jeremy Roenick, Rod Brind'Amour, and Teemu Selanne.   

http://www.tsn.ca/berglund-blues-agree-to-five-year-contract-1.680432

https://twitter.com/DetroitRedWings/status/835246703292854273

http://www.tsn.ca/stars-send-eaves-to-ducks-for-second-round-pick-1.680623

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/maple-leafs-suspend-goaltender-garret-sparks-indefinitely/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/03/24/microsofts-teen-girl-ai-turns-into-a-hitler-loving-sex-robot-wit/

Just sad.  Whether through joking or whatever, they completely corrupted the program in no time flat.

For Stefan Matteau

Senators have sent Shane Prince and 7th in 2016 to Islanders for a third in 2016.

For a 6th.  From Florida.

For a third.

Ah the internet.  Clearly this campaign was designed by someone who still had faith in the human race.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2536730/montreal-canadiens-automated-twitter-campaign-backfires/

So Tie put out a book.  One article said that one of the problems with it is he doesn't name names.  Like in this excerpt:

"There are some other good bits, but in the book Domi has an annoying habit of not providing names. For example, he talks about the last year of his career in 2005-06 and how he said a player who was a free agent came to his house to have Domi help him get signed by the Toronto Maple Leafs. He then goes on to write about how the player began acting out, "like he couldn't take the pressure...and eventually things came to a head at a team meeting. This guys stood up in front of the team and started criticizing the guys around him. He talked as though he was untouchable and knew all the answers, and acted as though everyone else was the problem. We were stunned, and he just kept going on and on. A lot of my teammates were staring at me in shock. It was the first time Mats (Sundin) ever looked at me as if to say, 'Do something. Now.' When I saw that, I snapped.
" 'Hey,' I yelled. 'Why don't you shut the hell up? If you don't have anything good to say, don't say it. We don't need any negative B.S. right now. I don't know what kind of leadership you learned on other teams, because you don't have any.' "
Prior to that season, the Maple Leafs signed three free agents – Eric Lindros, Jason Allison and Mariusz Czerkawski. We'll let you decide to which one he's referring."

That was from the hockey news.  He does apperently name names in some cases though

"But that's not what people who loved Domi as a player want to read. Much of the book is devoted to his life as an on-ice fighter, with some interesting and amusing sidebars that occurred during his career. He talks about one night when he and former New Jersey Devils defenseman Ken Daneyko got into a head-butting contest in a bar, and how in Calgary in 2003, he and a couple of teammates had to force an extremely intoxicated Ed Belfour into a cab to take him back to the team hotel. Belfour continued to resist until Domi had no other choice but to punch him in the face and knock him out cold"

Anyways, it sounds like a good read.

Zajac an option for the Maple Leafs?

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/zajac-an-option-for-the-maple-leafs~712498