Mike Johnson says Leafs must dramatically improve how they advance the puck next season: Leafs Morning Take
Another night, another ugly loss for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Just for good measure, they lost one player from each position due to injury, too.
You read that right. Anthony Stolarz blew out what looked like his groin 2:34 into the game. Later on, both Brandon Carlo (lower body) and Dakota Joshua (upper body) were forced to leave the game after two. All three will not dress tonight on Long Island, prompting several debuts.
That’s where the conversation started on the Thursday edition of Leafs Morning Take. Stolarz can’t stay healthy. He made only 26 appearances this season after a career-high 34 last year. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t make sense for any of these players to suit up for another game this year. Any way you slice it, the Leafs need to find a way to drop their final four games of the season. They need to get themselves a top-5 pick.
Meantime, a new candidate has entered the ongoing management search. On Wednesday, it was announced that Ron Francis, who’s an Ontario native and former Maple Leaf, is stepping down from his post in Seattle as President of Hockey Operations. Ultimately, we’re not crazy about his track record. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him get an interview, though.
Furthermore, we did discuss the 4-0 loss to Washington a bit, too. Logan Thompson made 24 saves. Scotiabank Arena was dead. And rightfully so. This team has been unwatchable for the majority of the season. The only intrigue heading into the night was wondering if that would be Alex Ovechkin’s final game in Toronto. We’ll see. So, the Leafs will be on Long Island for the second half of the back-to-back. There’s a bit more incentive to watch, too. Artur Akhtyamov will make his first NHL start while Luke Haymes and William Villeneuve will make their NHL debuts. Pete DeBoer will coach his first game for the Islanders, too.
After that, former Maple Leaf and TSN Hockey analyst Mike Johnson dropped by. MJ started with Anthony Stolarz’s latest injury and what it could mean moving forward, while also touching on Akhtyamov ahead of his first NHL start. From there, he got into tanking and whether finishing near the bottom makes sense. The conversation then shifted to the Leafs’ front-office search, with thoughts on Sunny Mehta and Ron Francis, while advocating for a president + GM structure. He also admitted he’s thought about getting into management, but still loves his current role. Looking ahead, MJ leaned more toward a rebuild than a retool — with some caveats — and wrapped by pointing out one key issue: the Leafs need to get better at advancing the puck up the ice.
At last, we’ve reach another Friday. To cap off the week, we will recap Leafs/Islanders, plus look ahead to Saturday night’s home tilt with the tanking Florida Panthers. Also, former Panthers head coach/GM and NHL analyst Doug MacLean will drop by the show once again to dish on everything that’s happened recently.