Team Canada’s off to a tremendous start in Milan.
Jon Cooper’s squad looked extremely connected in their tournament beatdown of Czechia, something that can’t be said about Sweden. There’s a ton of dysfunction surrounding that team early in the tournament. What exactly is their coach doing?
At any rate, we spent the first 25 minutes of the show doing a Milan Games roundtable —featuring our guy Zack Phillips. We broke down Canada’s dissection of Czechia, plus looked ahead to the second half of their back-to-back against Switzerland. Connor McDavid had three apples. He had amazing chemistry with Macklin Celebrini. Canada had different goal scorers, 11 players notched at least one point. Meantime, Jordan Binnington, who’s looking to silence the critics yet again, made 26 stops to kick off his Milan Games with a shutout.
All in all, it’s been a pretty fascinating start to the men’s tournament. Slovakia upset Finland, then Finland beat Sweden. Team USA cruised to a 5-1 win in their opener. Auston Matthews buried in his Olympic debut. William Nylander’s off to a hot start, too, even though he hasn’t been practicing. We did spend some time discussing the potential fallout once he returns to the Maple Leafs. For the past month or so, dating back to the game in Vegas, Nylander’s been dealing with a groin issue. Speaking of the Swedes, their coach has it out for Oliver Ekman-Larsson, which from a Leafs perspective, could be a blessing. OEL dressed for Sweden’s opener, but didn’t take one single shift. He logged just under eight minutes in their loss to Finland. Bizarre stuff, but as expected, the 2024 Stanley Cup champion has handled everything like a pro.
After letting Zack go from the show, 2002 Canadian Olympian and former Maple Leaf great netminder Curtis Joseph stopped by the show for the first time ever. He was awesome. Firstly, Cujo weighed in on Canada’s opener, and most specifically, Binnington’s performance. After that, we got into some Leafs talk. He dished on the crease and what he would do with it. We even turned back the clock to 2002 when Pat Quinn – his coach with the Leafs – was the head coach of Team Canada’s Salt Lake City team. Curtis discussed the politics behind the scenes. Since we were at it, I even asked Cujo about his infamous on-ice clash with legendary NHL referee Mick McGeough in the 2000 Stanley Cup Playoffs. To wrap, looking at the daunting task ahead for Craig Berube and company, Joseph thinks the Leafs have what it takes to get back in the mix. He likes their brand and their style.
Leafs Morning Take will return with two more episodes next week as we continue our coverage of the 2026 Milan Games.