Hockey Stuff

On the eve of the start of the NHL semi-final series between the Montreal Canadiens and Vegas Golden Knights many questions are being asked. Will the matchup between the Canadiens and the Golden Knights be a David versus Goliath hockey showdown for the ages? This remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen if the gritty Habs have been playing over their heads during the first two rounds of this year's NHL playoffs. Based upon the way the Vegas Golden Knights were able to handle the Colorado Avalanche during the final two games of their quarterfinal series, it would be hard to imagine that the plucky Habs could muster much of a fight. Now that fans in the US are able to fill hockey arenas, US-based NHL teams will certainly reap the benefit of playing in their own barns.  After facing the Tavares-less Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round and the depleted, Scheifele-less Winnipeg Jets in the second round, dealing with a healthy Vegas Golden Knights roster is sure to be an enormou...

Toronto Maple Leafs’ general manager Kyle Dubas may finally be seeing the light. Since he took over the Maple Leafs' GM reins, Dubus has espoused an analytics approach over traditional hockey thinking. He has built a team that has enjoyed great regular season success, but as all members of Leafs Nation are painfully aware, this analytics-built team has failed to produce a single playoff series victory since Dubas has been at the helm. Old school critics, such as the recently retired Don Cherry and current Pittsburgh Penguins president Brian Burke, have vocally expressed their concerns about the way the Maple Leafs have been built. As proponents of tough “old time hockey,” Cherry and Burke  have stated repeatedly that the Leafs just aren’t tough enough to make a deep run in the NHL playoffs. Hindsight would certainly seem to suggest that these elder hockey statesmen may, in fact, know what they are talking about. Dubus, no longer dubious, now appears to be shifting his analytics min...