The Leafs activated Rasmus Sandin from LTIR onto the active roster yesterday. The Leafs now have no players on IR, with Jake Muzzin and Ondřej Kaše playing, Petr Mrázek skating again, and now Sandin back to full health. With no salary cap in the playoffs, there are zero cap implications here, but if you take all the extra skaters off the Leafs roster (ie. the entire Marlies squad), they are under the cap, just as they were to start the season.

It’s unclear whether the Leafs plan to play Sandin in the playoffs, especially tomorrow for Game 3 on the road. Unless there are injuries (fingers crossed for Morgan Rielly), I think Sandin is going to be the seventh guy ahead of Justin Holl. I can’t see him healthy-scratching anyone at the moment, including Timothy Liljegren.

What I would like to see for the lineup tonight is an adjustment to the philosophy for the forwards. John Tavares and William Nylander have been split up, and as a result have been splitting offensive zone usage rather than sharing it. This needs to stop right away in my mind because this middle ground isn’t getting the best out of Tavares or Nylander anymore. It did when their supporting cast were on shooting heaters, but that’s over, so the best thing each of these stars can have is each other right now.

Last Night’s Results

New York Rangers 5-2 over Pittsburgh Penguins — series tied 1-1
Florida Panthers 5-1 over Washington Capitals — series tied 1-1
Dallas Stars 2-0 over Calgary Flames — series tied 1-1
Colorado Avalanche 2-1 (OT) over Nashville Predators — COL up 2-0

Kudos to Calgary and Dallas for making the most boring series of all time. The two teams have combined for 4.17 expected goals over two games at 5v5. Doing some quick math, that’s just one goal per game from each team! That’s it! It’s the playoffs! Wake up!

Tonight’s Games

Carolina Hurricanes @ Boston Bruins
CAR up 2-0, 7:00pm, SN360, TNT
Toronto Maple Leafs @ Tampa Bay Lightning
Series tied 1-1, 7:30pm, CBC, SN, TBS
Minnesota Wild @ St. Louis Blues
Series tied 1-1, 9:30pm, SN360, TNT
Edmonton Oilers @ Los Angeles Kings
Series tied 1-1, 10:00pm, CBC, SN, TBS

Various Leafs and Branches

Back to Excited Episode 178: Game 2 Rapid Reaction | by: Arvind and Fulemin

The Newfoundland Growlers have announced their 2022-23 regular season schedule

Apparently sports teams are getting around the airport covid testing requirements when crossing the border by driving across and taking their jets from the other side. Extremely mixed feelings about this. Actually, I can’t even call them mixed.

The last Boston vs. Carolina game was pretty wild, and it definitely got out of the hands of the referees (funny how that always happens with the Bruins). All that came of that night was a couple fines.

Expect a couple Atlantic Canada cities to host the 2023 Men’s U20 World Junior Championships. I’m assuming it’s the men’s tournament because Dreger decided to not clarify this in his tweet. It’s 2022, surely we can stop considering men the default. The women’s U20 tournament currently doesn’t exist, while the U18 tournament will be happening in June in Wisconsin.

From The Branches