It's likely a day one cap move as well to get as close to $95.5 as possible. He's completely below the buriable threshold so it's nothing when Laughton is back

With Laughton injured, it allows them to send down Cowan as they probably can't guarantee him 12 minutes a night

Oh absolutely, to a horrendous degree. They did what they needed to do to get by. It shouldn't have continued once everyone was back. The contrast from the LA home win in October to the end of the year was stark and I don't think it's unobtainable for this group to get back to that

I think they got into a feedback loop in the second half of the year while dealing with injuries. So when everyone got healthy, they leaned into more because they could "defend even better"

Probably wishful thinking, but both Tre and the coaching staff have noted the need to play more in the other teams end. Lalonde was quite vocal on the broadcasts about how passive they were. So there may be some tactical adjustments made to help with the lack of puck moving talent

I have two that I haven't even claimed yet, I'll shoot you a DM

not holding my breath on this but it would be nice if this means the SN regional games begin to feel like I'm watching a Leafs broadcast. The release does mention broadcast duties

There's a non-zero chance that Kane filed the complaint

I think using this offseason to change out the wingers to have more hunters to track down/recover pucks is imperative given the constraints behind the bench and on D. If they do it cheaply, which is "easy", they can carry space into the season to get a 2C for cheap as their space becomes the asset

It is nice, but we can't forget that was only available to them because Tkachuk tore his adductor off the bone and missed the remainder of the regular season, freeing up the space to essentially only move out $4.5M to bring in $13M

Nothing good comes from writing anything within 48 hours anyways! Looking forward to the offseason discussion

Plugged holes, spent a lot. Big time players will need to make big time plays in big time games for it all to work out

Any absence of Tanev or McCabe collapses the entire shaky house. Based on Puck IQ's binning, it looks like Jokiharju would be an upgrade on the third pair if the Leafs are dead set on acquiring a centre

The series against Edmonton last year was incredible how often they shoulder checked and changed direction in order to get in the way. I notice it more in the D zone to give time more outlet passes

Do you think if the C market is too rich, it would make sense to get a premium RS D to try and juice the offense through puck movement? Andersson in CGY is getting strong results vs Elites while paired with Kevin Bahl and poor QoT. 1 year left at $4.5M after this.

I don't think it was a shove, I think Hathaway took advantage of some light resistance and made sure he hit the goalie with plausible deniability. Similar to how he "bumped into" 67 on the first goal and countless other instances in his career. The rest of the play was just dumb by McCabe though

It really looks like one team has played twice on the road since the other team last played a game. Hopefully they can get settled