David Pagnotta says he would be surprised if Chris Tanev returned to action: Leafs Morning Take
Mitch Marner did it again for Canada.
The dude’s incredible in 3-on-3 on OT.
The former Leaf netted the OT winner as Canada edged Czechia 4-3 to advance to the semifinals of the Milan Games. As expected, the epic tally caused a storm of anti-Leaf content across the globe. The hockey world’s obsessed with Toronto, Wednesday afternoon was the latest example of it. Obviously, that’s where the conversation started on the latest edition of Leafs Morning Take as Zack Phillips filled in for Jay Rosehill. From Mark Stone to Roberto Luongo to every Bruins/Canadiens fan ever, the Leafs took stray after stray. Simply put, people are missing the point. No one outside of Toronto understands why the fan base and a lot of the media are not big fans of Mitch Marner. It is what it is.
Suffice it is to say, there was a lot to dissect from the Canada game. After the Marner chat, we got into the officiating. How the hell did Czechia get away with having eight men on the ice for the 3-2 goal? Imagine the Czechs went on to win the game? Milan would be burned to the ground. The funny thing about everything is that the Czech coach came out after the game and ripped the refs: “We were basically playing against six players..” Now that’s funny. Jordan Binnington deserves a lot of praise, so does Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini. Canada’s depth needs to rise up, or they won’t win this tournament. Meantime, there still isn’t much of an update on Sidney Crosby.
After that, we broke down the latest in Toronto as the Leafs returned to practice. The headliner was seeing Chris Tanev skate. At this point, he’s going to try and give it a go, but it remains to be seen if he will actually be able to play. With that in mind, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta dropped by to dish on Marner’s Magic and Toronto’s deadline plans. We hit on Tanev, Joshua, Rielly, and what happens with the likes of Bobby McMann and Scott Laughton. Pagnotta intimates Toronto’s plans haven’t really changed: They want to be buyers and sellers.
Lastly, we gave our quick thoughts on Friday’s two semi-final games: Canada vs. Finland and U.S.A. vs. Slovakia.